A special monitoring center for food safety will be set up for this year's Olympic Games in Beijing, a local official said Wednesday.

The Olympic Food Safety Command Center, as it will be named, will be in a centralized command of food safety work during the Games period, issuing warnings for food risks and dealing with food-related emergencies, said Zhang Zhikuan, head of the Beijing Municipal Bureau for Industry and Commerce.

The center is to be established by the Beijing Municipal Food Safety Supervision and Coordination Office with the support of the Organizing Committee of the Beijing Olympics, the Olympic Security Command Center and staff from major Olympic venues, said Zhang, also head of the food safety office, at a work conference.

According to the conference, food to be provided for the Beijing Olympics in August this year will be classified into 345 items under 10 categories, with each item checked against specific technical standards.

"Precautions must be taken to avert any trace of terrorist attacks on our food supply chain," Zhang told the meeting.

Beijing is also to put into full operation a food safety data retroaction system that follows all the food processing stages from farmland to dining table for the athletes, he said.

In addition to the food safety center, the municipal government will set up three other special task forces on market control, protection of intellectual property rights and protection of consumer rights and interests, amid efforts to ensure a sound market order during the Games period, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2008)