BEIJING -- China's State Council, or Cabinet, on Wednesday said it had ordered mainland dairy giant Sanlu to immediately stop sales of powdered milk in Taiwan after announcing the group had sold products contaminated with melamine to the island.
State Council spokesman Li Weiyi said 1,000 bags among 25 tons of powdered milk sold by Hebei-based Sanlu to Taiwan in June were found contaminated with melamine.
"The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council informed the Taiwan authorities immediately after the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine reported the case, and has ordered Sanlu Companies to ask their Taiwan partners to stop selling the contaminated milk powder," said Li at a press conference in Beijing.
"We have also informed Taiwan authorities about the other 21 mainland diary companies whose products were found contaminated with melamine," said Li. However, those companies had sold no products to Taiwan.
"We feel deeply sorry for the hazards Sanlu infant formula might have brought to Taiwan consumers," said Li.
He said the Taiwan Affairs Office was putting food safety as one of the topics for the second round of talks between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).
Regarding the possible contamination of melamine in artificial coffee creamer products sold to Taiwan, Li said that so far, there was no evidence of such contamination.
He said Shandong provincial quality inspection bureau had checked the creamer produced by Qingdao-based Shandong Duqing Company, which was reported by some Taiwan media as selling tainted products to Taiwan, and did not find evidence of melamine contamination.
The company sold 70 tons of creamer products to Taiwan in November last year, the main ingredient of which was glucose syrup, with only 1 to 2 percent of protein, Li said.
The protein level was not among the criteria for judging the product's quality, so there was no reason for the company to add melamine, he said.
