A joint investigation team of China and Japan to the Tianyang Food company, in north China’s Hebei Province, has not detected abnormity after a half-day inspection tour in the plant, both Japanese and Chinese investigators said early Wednesday morning.

 

"The plant is very clean and well managed, and no abnormity has been detected," a Japanese investigator told the press. Japan will conduct further analysis based on information and data collected in the plant, he said.

 

Wang Daning, director of the department of food import and export safety under the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), said that China and Japan have been cooperating well with each other, and the Chinese side has been letting Japanese investigators see related materials and equipments as many as possible.

 

So far, Japanese police have confirmed that at least 10 people fell sick after eating dumplings laced with the highly toxic organophosphate pesticide called methamidophos made by Tianyang Food.

 

Both governments of China and Japan have been struggling to find what actually had happened. A Japanese investigation team came to China and held talks with China Tuesday morning, then to Tianyang Food in Shijiazhuang in the afternoon and worked till 1 a.m. the next morning.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 6, 2008)