The measures, which form part of a five-year plan are designed to allay importing consumer fears, which have heightened over recent months with food safety scares, including the discovery of melamine, a banned chemical, in feed for livestock.
On a government website, China said the new campaign would include special inspections to cover 90 per cent of food manufacturing premises and strict controls on the overuse of pesticides and additives by farmers and producers.
"Ensuring food and pharmaceutical safety for the public must be the starting point and destination of all work," the website stated. "Monitoring and administering food and pharmaceutical safety must be at the very heart of grassroots and base work."
China has also received mounting international criticism, especially from the United States, which claims the exporter has allowed fake products seep into the global marketplace, endangering health consumer health.
Li Yuanping, director of the Bureau of Import and Export Food Safety of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said at a news conference last month that the 99 per cent of food exports to the US over the past two years met the required quality standards.
Part of the measures are also in response to deepening domestic concerns about the safety of food, which was rocked by the prosecution of a high ranking food safety official last month.
Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the national food and drug agency, was sentenced last month to death for corruption related charges.
Exports of food and live animals have risen from US$29 billion in 1980 to US$224 billion in 2005, according to Chinese statistics.
