Government and Policy
Fake salt hints inadequate gov't supervision
By Lan Tian (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-01 18:30
A recent crackdown on a Chongqing gang that processed and sold counterfeit edible table salt revealed shortcomings in government supervision and the legal system intended to protect consumers, an official said.
Ten people were tried Nov. 5 in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality for processing, falsely labeling and reselling nearly 800 tons of industrial salt as edible salt since 2007.
Xu Shouhua and Tan Zhengbing, the main culprits, were sentenced to 13 and 12 years in jail and fined 400,000 ($59,000) yuan and 150,000 yuan ($21,500) for the crimes.
Police tracked down about 788.85 tons of the fake product sold by the gang, which is enough for 400,000 people for a year, said Li Zhi, deputy director of the Chongqing salt administration bureau. No cases of poisoning by the counterfeit product have been reported.
Industrial salt is used mostly by the chemical industry. Edible salt must be iodized to protect people’s health. To help ensure this, the government has authorized only a few companies to produce and sell edible table salt.
Small packages of fake edible salt appeared on the markets of 15 districts and counties in Chongqing starting in 2007. Xu was caught by police last November at his illegal salt plant.
Xu and his accomplices bought industrial salt and packages from the Sanyanqiao freight yard at Guangzhou's suburb, Guangdong province. They repackaged the salt into small parcels in Chongqing, and then sold them to local wholesalers.
The packages were sophisticatedly counterfeited and updated regularly, making it hard to be distinguished from authentic products, the investigation found.
The industrial salt market lacks government supervision. Driven by profits, people like Xu have purchased industrial salt and turned it into counterfeit table salt.
"Inadequate supervision and an imperfect legal system are the deep-rooted causes behind the rampant illegal activities," said Chen Yigen, director of the Chongqing salt administration bureau. "It leads to the salt industry being out of control."
The country has about 3,000 salt-producing companies that produce 68 million tons of crude salt annually. Of that, eight million tons are processed into edible salt and the other 60 million tons into industrial salt.
"The country has only 96 authorized edible salt producers, but actually many unauthorized producers have been selling edible salt they could gain much more profit compared to industrial salt," Chen said.
As the second-largest salt producer following China, the United States only has six salt companies that produce and sell some 45 million tons of salt every year. But China has about 3,000 companies involved in salt production and circulation, he said.
