China's milk powder, baby food imports up since melamine scandal

SHANGHAI, Feb. 25 (Chinese media) -- Concerns over

adulterated dairy products have driven up China's imports of baby food and milk

powder through the port of Shanghai.

Fang Yong, spokesman of the Shanghai Entry-Exit

Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, said Wednesday that imports of baby food --

including diary products -- were up 32.5 percent by weight between Sept. 15 and

Feb. 15, compared with the same period during 2007-2008.

The melamine scandal surfaced last September.

Shanghai port does not handle all of China's food

imports, but it does handle one-fourth of China's trade.

The port also saw imports of whey powder leap 64.5

percent year-on-year by weight between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15. Whey is a protein

powder made from cow's milk.

The rise in dairy-related imports contrasts with

total food imports. For example, food imports via Shanghai port fell 27 percent

year-on-year during the first six weeks of 2009.

China's leading diary producers are still feeling the

fallout from the scandal, which involved adulteration of milk with melamine. The

chemical, used to produce plastics and flooring, was added illegally to raise

the apparent protein content of dairy products.

A nationwide investigation was organized after the scandal

last year, when melamine-tainted milk powder sickened more than 294,000

infants and killed at least six. The infants developed kidney problems

because of the melamine.

A court in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province,

declared Feb. 12 that Sanlu Group, the diary producer at the heart of the

scandal, was bankrupt.

Sanlu chairwoman Tian Wenhua was given a life

sentence last month, and the group was fined 49.37 million yuan (about 7.2

million U.S. dollars) by the Shijiazhuang court for selling fake or substandard

products.

China exports fewer dairy products in 2008 on Sanlu milk

scandal

BEIJING, Feb. 7 (Chinese media) -- Export of China's dairy

products dropped 10.4 percent year on year to 121,000 tonnes in 2008 in the wake

of the tainted baby milk powder scandal, said China's Customs on Saturday.

The General Administration of Customs said the decline was

due to shrinking demand from overseas after the Sanlu milk powder scandal that

broke last September. Full story