The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision has recently conducted a sample survey of city's bottled pure and mineral water. Fifty-seven products from fifty manufacturers were examined, only forty-one of them were found to be up to standard, accounting for 71.9 percent.

According to a bureau official, pure water products were examined for items including conductivity, the consumption of potassium permanganate, nitrite, colony volume, coliform, mildew and microzyme. For mineral water products, such items as strontium, leaning silicic acid, fluoride, nitrite, colony and coliform are tested.

In the meantime, the bureau declares that only 76 percent of the drink waters used for water coolers are up to standard, warning substandard water may do harm to people's heath. As water-consuming summer is imminent, the Beijing branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, calls for better quality supervision over drink water and requires water manufacturers, dealers and retailers of providing consumers with quality services.

(China.org.cn by Li Liangdu, May 14, 2004)