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Health authorities will test imported Chinese seafood to check if it is safe after the United States tightened its import regime following revelations of contamination.
The US has stopped seafood shipments from China after tests found carcinogenic residues from antimicrobial agents in some seafood.
The shipments will remain stalled until they are proven free of residues.
Green Party MP Sue Kedgley called on the Food Safety Authority yesterday to slap similar restrictions on about 900 tonnes of Chinese prawns and shrimps imported into New Zealand each year.
But the deputy chief executive of the authority, Sandra Daly, said the authority would conduct its own tests before considering restrictions.
Ms Daly said the authority had last conducted spot testing on Chinese seafood about two years ago and found no problems.
It would conduct new tests in the next few days.
Ms Daly said the levels of substances detected by the US were very low and other countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain had not imposed restrictions.
Some observers have speculated the restrictions may be related to arguments surrounding market access between the two countries rather than any genuine safety concern.
But Ms Kedgley said the US restrictions were a sign of China's "tainted food scandal" and showed that unsafe food practices in the country were widespread.
New Zealand needed a tighter testing regime and country of origin labelling so consumers could choose whether to buy Chinese produce, she said.
That the Government failed to test food that may be contaminated and failed to give consumers the right to know where it came from was an outrage, she said.
- NZPA
