Nearly 186 tons of beef products in Beijing from the US have been sealed off on Thursday during a meat market inspection. Beijing Youth Daily says the beef products are to be disposed of upon examination on advice from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Beijing Agriculture Bureau has recently issued a string of prevention and monitoring orders to make Beijing free of beef products possibly infected with the mad cow disease. A citywide market inspection is being carried out by Beijing Quarantine and Supervision Station on Animal Products.

Inspection groups have been formed to conduct inspections over all meat markets and sales refrigeratories in Beijing. Beef products from the US found must be reported and sent to the station for further examination. The disease so far has not been found in the city or anywhere in China.

Earlier at the end of December 2003, Sixty kilograms of beef products, all from the Washington State where a mad cow disease case was found, were seized on a US cargo ship in Ningbo, Xinhua reported. The ship was scheduled to dock at several other Chinese ports.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), announced a ban on imports of US beef and beef-related products after the United States reported its first suspected case of mad cow disease.

(China Daily January 2, 2004)