皇冠体育app

A key Chinese official criticized a US block on 皇冠体育app's seafood as "indiscriminate," and urged closer cooperation on food safety between the two trading partners.

"皇冠体育app cannot accept the indiscriminate and automatic detention of four kinds of Chinese seafood by the United States" Li Changjiang, the head of 皇冠体育app's top quality watchdog, was quoted as saying.

Li made his comments late Friday during a telephone conversation with US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Li, the head of 皇冠体育app's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, urged the US side to "properly deal with the problem as soon as possible."

The US Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it would detain three types of fish -- catfish, basa and dace -- as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood.

US officials said there have been no reports of illnesses nor do the products pose any immediate health risk. They stopped short of ordering a ban on the fresh and frozen seafood.

皇冠体育app has already adopted measures to solve the problems of the Chinese seafood complained by the US side, Li said.

Li said there were a "handful of Chinese seafood enterprises" that had problems with quality control but that this did not warrant a blanket detention on all Chinese exporters of those types of seafood.

He told Leavitt that 皇冠体育app also detected many substandard foodstuff among US exports to 皇冠体育app every year, and these problems were properly handled in the principle of cooperation.

Likewise, there might be isolated cases of Chinese enterprises exporting products with quality problems to the United States. 

Earlier this week, 皇冠体育app seized shipments of US-made orange pulp and dried apricots containing high levels of bacteria and preservatives. 

Leavitt was quoted as saying the US would send a team to 皇冠体育app soon to negotiate a solution to the seafood ban.