China to set up food safety system amid scares

BEIJING, Mar 12 (Reuters) China will set up a food safety information system to keep people better informed, a health ministry spokesman said today, after a spate of scares over everything from fake baby milk to carcinogenic fish.

''We must pay attention to hygiene and safety of the public's food and drink, and at the same time guarantee the timely, accurate, authoritative and scientific release of information,'' spokesman Mao Qun'an told a news conference. ''We cannot let people feel that they can't eat this, they can't eat that,'' he added. ''This is not conducive to harmony in our society.'' But Mao did not say when the system might start working or what form it might take.

In the latest food scare, Chinese media said that US fast food giant KFC was using a potentially harmful chemical in the cooking process at restaurants in China, reports the health ministry said last week it was investigating.

KFC, a unit of US fast food group Yum Brands , said it would fully cooperate with the investigation carried out by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mao said he did not have any new information on the probe.

''We remind food and beverage companies they must abide by relevant national rules,'' the spokesman said.

Mao also said people needed to change their diets.

''Our country has a habit, which is that people like eating fried food. If you have this addiction, and eat such food every day, it will probably affect your health,'' he said.

Last August, nearly 40 people in Beijing contracted meningitis after they ate raw or partially cooked snails at a chain of Sichuan restaurants.

In 2004, a major health scandal erupted when China revealed that at least 13 babies had died from malnutrition in the country's impoverished eastern province of Anhui after being fed fake baby milk.

REUTERS RL PM1012