U.S. team heads for China to discuss food safety

A U.S. delegation arrives in Beijing on Tuesday on a five-day fact-finding mission on food and drug safety amid a series of health scares about the "made in China" label.

The United States stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of pets there this spring.

Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama was blamed on improperly labeled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup.

"Our U.S. regulatory agencies are concerned about what they see as insufficient infrastructure across the board in China to assure the safety, quality and effectiveness of many products exported to the United States," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Following the mission, China and the United States would begin discussions to develop bilateral agreements on food and feed safety and on drug and medical device safety, the statement said.

The two countries hope to have "strong, action-oriented documents" by December, it added.

Last week, EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva urged China to step up export quality. She said she had seen some improvement in how China handled EU warnings of faulty or substandard goods, but much more was needed to be done.

Earlier this month, the head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the visitors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would specifically discuss a dispute over China's seafood exports.

The FDA last month banned imports of Chinese farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace and eel unless their suppliers could prove they were free of certain veterinary substances, which pose no immediate health risk but could be a problem in the long run.

China in turn has tightened inspections of U.S. imports at its ports, and halted shipments of poultry, pigeons and meat as unsafe.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is currently on a visit to China in which is due to press for faster appreciation of the yuan and other financial reforms.