The Korea Food & Drug Administration on Thursday said it conducted a three-day site inspection at a factory of Nongshim, the makers of the snack, in Qingdao, China from April 2, but failed to find any problem in the production process there. During the same period, the Chinese State General Administration of Quality Inspection reportedly sent three officials to Nongshim's plant in Busan to investigate.

A KFDA official said the new Nongshim plant in China was built in 2002. “All doors to the manufacturing rooms are completely sealed from outside with air locks. There are no chinks for rats to squeeze through." The Chinese investigation team reportedly inspected the raw materials warehouse and manufacturing process at Nongshim's Busan plant and also concluded that there was no problem with the plant.

Although the KFDA had already finished an inspection of the Nongshim's Busan plant earlier, the Chinese team inspected the plant on its own because food safety has become a diplomatic issue.

Early this year, when pesticide was found in frozen Chinese dumplings exported to Japan, Japan and China ended up pointing the finger at each other. As a result, a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Japan originally scheduled for April was postponed until May.

The KFDA official continued, "In the case of the shrimp-flavored snack in question, the Chinese side insisted on investigating the Busan plant, considering that raw materials are processed for the snack products primarily in China and then finished products are produced in Korea."

The latest official announcement was made after the two countries discussed their respective investigation results and reached agreement. The Chinese decided not to make any separate announcement on their own since it found no problems. The two sides concluded they had no idea how the suspected rat's head got into the bag.

(englishnews@chosun.com )