Following an initiative oft he Ministry of Agriculture, China attempts to improve rural milk qualit standards. By now, 15 milk enterprises in China have passed the high-quality milk standard tests which are claimed to be more stringent than current standards of the dairy industry in Europe and America. Since the Sanlu infant milk powder incident in 2008, the problems exposed by the domestic dairy industry have caused consumers to have a great deal of mistrust, and imported dairy products have flooded into the domestic market. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Statistics, China’s total milk imports reached 1,955,600 tons in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 21.4%. In 2016, China imported 370,600 tons of milk powder from New Zealand, accounting for 83.3% of China’s total milk powder imports. Improved quality standards and their monitoring is hoped to ensure the supply of nutritious, safe, and reliable quality milk products to consumers but there seems still a long way to go.
China Bio news release, May 3, 2018