Chinese food products are getting safer, the top quality watchdog said yesterday.

It said tests on 3,384 different kinds of foodstuff showed about 86 percent were up to standard.

The products, from 2,777 processing companies, involved 35 categories, including milk, beer, jelly, fruit juice, milk powder, canned goods, and dried food and nuts.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, to reassure consumers following a number of safety scandals, said records of the past 22 years showed the safety of food products had been steadily increasing since 1998.

"The proportion of food products tested and qualified in the first half was the highest in recent years," Ji Zhengkun, director of the administration's quality inspection department, said. He did not give figures for previous years.

Beer, fruit juice and dried food and nuts saw the biggest improvement in quality, he said. Tests from January to last month showed that 89.3 percent of beer products met required standards, 5.2 percent higher than last year, and 80 percent of fruit juices, up 4.1 percent.