China acquires US$100 million food safety loan

The World Bank is to provide China $100 million in a bid to improve food safety in the country as it recognised the government had made food safety a top priority.

The loan will fund 70% of an initiative to boost the safety of agricultural products in the Jilin province of China. This is the bank's largest ever grant for a food safety project and the first it has financed in the country.

The scheme, the Jilin Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Project, will help develop new standards for good agricultural practices - including cultivation methods, and appropriate use of veterinary medicines and pesticides.

Eligible private enterprises or farmers associations will receive small loans from the project to develop and demonstrate models for integrating small-scale farmers into high quality, high value and safe agricultural product chains.