在中国，在世界的食品安全

With the Beijing Olympics just over a year away, the revamp of the city is well underway. Everywhere you look, things are changing. But now the Central Government is starting to focus on the less visibly obvious to ensure the games go off without a hitch. And in that respect, Beijing has now pledged to crank up its efforts to ensure the food the athletes, journalists and tourists are going to eat is safe. On top of a new supervision system for food safety, the government is also going to increase the reward money for unlawful production of food or food products up from 10,000 kuai to 50,000. So just how safe is the food in China right now? And what is the food safety level on a global basis?

First, from a Chinese perspective on food safety from the medical side of things, we're joined on the line by Dr. Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization's China representative.

(Dialogue with Bekedam)

Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk food safety from a more global perspective.

Ni hao, you're listening to People In the Know, your window into the world around you, online at www.crienglish.com here on China Radio International. I'm Paul James in Beijing. In this edition of our show, in the wake of new pledges by China to tighten up on food safety, we're analyzing the controversial issue. For more on a global perspective, we're joined from the Netherlands by Professor Michiel Keyzer, Director of the Center for World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije University.