By Tamora Vidaillet

BEIJING, Jan 30 (Reuters) - China says it has tried its best to meet European Union food standards and decried the way the EU handled a potential ban on some Chinese exports after finding fault with its control system for medicinal residues.

The European Union's Veterinary Committee recommended the suspension of some meat and seafood imports after finding "serious deficiencies" in China's system and the discovery of the antibiotic chloramphenicol, banned in Europe as it can cause a potentially lethal form of anaemia, in shrimps and prawns.

A ban would cover rabbit meat, poultry, honey, mollusks, crustaceans, frozen shrimps and prawns as well as pet food, affecting hundreds of millions of euros worth of imports.

China, a new member of the World Trade Organisation, is believed to use higher levels of medicines in meat and seafood for domestic consumption than in developed countries to ensure enough food for its 1.3 billion people, Chinese analysts said.

"China's standards for using antibiotics in meat and seafood are slightly lower than in the United States and Britain, but the standards for exports should have no problems," said Wang Jun of Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants.

"I think the EU report may have referred to problems related to one or two enterprises, but it would not be representative."

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Senior Agriculture Ministry official Zhao Weining told Reuters the EU had admitted there was no problem with China's food safety standards for exports and its impression that there were problems with implementation did not appear to be accurate.

"From 1999, with the help of the EU, China set up its first national monitoring scheme on medicinal residues and for three years China has implemented the plan," said Zhao.

"During implementation there are some places which are not totally satisfactory," he said.

But he said there were misunderstandings in the EU report, which he did not specify, and Brussels had not dealt with the case properly.

"The draft should be handed over to the Chinese side for relevant officials to make comments on the draft before it comes out with a formal report," he said. "This time, it was not carried out according to procedures."

The EU feedback on China's monitoring scheme had been positive until last year, said Zhao.

"Only last year did the investigation team, which spent a short amount of time here, give a completely negative verdict. We think it could be due to changes in staffing at the EU or in its policy. We are still studying the reasons," he said.

It was too early to tell if the EU criticisms were right or wrong, he said.

The EU office in Beijing declined to comment on the issue or make the report available.

LATEST SPAT

This is not China's first spat with the EU over food safety standards. Last May, the EU lifted a five-year embargo on imports of frozen Chinese chicken put in place over hygiene concerns.

Last year, Chinese shrimps containing chloramphenicol, used to treat life-threatening diseases such as anthrax and typhoid, triggered a food scare in Europe and forced the return of more than 200 tonnes.

Other large export markets for Chinese food products include Japan, which said on Monday that it would strengthen quarantine checks on some Chinese imports following the EU recommendation.

Wang said around 60% of the companies he visited in China used products such as antibiotics, some banned abroad, for domestic food products.

He said freer trade now that China is a WTO member could mean that smaller firms might export products not up to scratch.

But that problem was only likely to be short term as checks would be made eventually in China or the importing countries, he said.

From Reutershealth.com