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BEIJING, July 31 - A team of U.S. health officials was set to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday for a five-day talks on food and drug safety with Chinese counterpart.
The officials will begin talks on boosting flows of information and devising regulations both sides are confident in, U.S. Secretary of Health Mike Leavitt said in a statement late Monday in Washington.
He said the meetings would "pave the way for us to open discussions on developing two memoranda of agreement between our two governments, one on the safety of food and feed, and one on the safety of drugs and medical devices."
Leavitt said he hoped the two agreements would be in place by December. "We believe that with the technology, the scientific expertise, and the commitment each side has, we can work together to correct the outstanding issues."
Discussions are expected to help ease tensions triggered by the US Food and Drug Administration's announcement last month that it would detain five types of Chinese farm-raised seafood products catfish, basa, dace, shrimp and eel after repeated testing turned up contamination with harmful drug residues, Li Yuanping, head of the import and export safety bureau of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ China), said.
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