China acknowledges exporting tainted wheat gluten to US

BEIJING: Amid a global scare on 'Made in China' products, the government on Friday said it has revoked the business licenses of two companies that exported wheat protein tainted with toxic chemicals to the United States, and banned them from engaging in foreign trade.

"The Xuzhou Anying Biotechnology Development Company in eastern Jiangsu Province and the Binzhou Futian Biotechnology Co Ltd, also in eastern China's Shandong Province have "unlawfully added melamine" in some of its protein products exported to the United States," China's Quality watchdog chief, Li Changjiang told reporters here at a press conference.

The tainted wheat gluten was blamed for several dog and cat deaths in North America in recent months.

Investigations showed that the two companies managed to get go-ahead at the customs and evade quality check-ups by labelling the products as chemical ingredients, Li said.

Chemical ingredients are not subject to compulsory inspection in China.

The two companies have constituted adulteration by adding melamine to the wheat protein and rice protein in a bid to meet the contractual protein content requirements, he said.

"The behaviour severely violated the country's feed quality and safety standard," he added.

Li said the local police had launched an investigation into the cases and had detained related company officials.

The administration said earlier it found no further melamine-contaminated products after checking 399 samples from 173 exporters nationwide.