More than one fourth of the Chinese health supplements currently available are not officially authorized or present false information on their packaging, reported the Beijing News Friday citing a recent survey.

According to a report released by the China Health Care Association (CHCA) last Thursday, 767 out of 2,951 health supplements produced by 2,025 businesses use no or unauthorized production permit number or unauthorized product name.

Another 267 kinds of supplements are suspected of the same problem and remain to be investigated, the report said.

The survey, the biggest ever of its kind, was conducted from June 2004 to March this year and investigated pharmacies, supermarkets and health food franchised stores in more than 300 cities and counties across the country.

Supplements for losing weight account for 193 or the biggest part of the 767 fake products, followed by those for improving immune system and for beauty.

"These fake health products generally falsify or use other businesses' production license number instead of counterfeiting famous brand names," said Zhu Kangnian, CHCA's secretary general.

"They don't have strong promotion team or hardly advertise themselves. So customers can avoid being cheated by choosing well-known brands when buying health supplements," he said.

In Beijing alone, 97 businesses are found to produce 68 kinds of fake health supplements.

Zhu said the CHCA will work closely with the government to crack on irregularity on the market.

Last Wednesday, Hui Lusheng, deputy director of the State Food and Drug Administration, said the first draft of China's Food Safety Law had been finished, which was widely regarded as a major step forward for China to regulate its food and supplements market by introducing harsher rules.

By the middle of 2004, China had ratified 3,829 businesses to produce 6,009 kinds of health supplements, but only 1,823 businesses are still in operation and 1,917 products are being produced, according to the survey.

Source: Xinhua