Safety scandal hits China dairy exports

BEIJING -- The scandal over tainted milk powder led to a 10 percent fall in Chinese dairy exports by volume and a rise in foreign imports last year, state media said Saturday, citing the customs department.

Dozens of countries pulled Chinese dairy products from their shelves in 2008 after it emerged that the industrial chemical melamine had been added to milk to artificially boost its protein content.

"Lots of foreign countries stopped importing dairy products from China, and the country's milk industry suffered severely," the Xinhua news agency quoted a customs report as saying.

However, a rise in the price of milk meant the value of China's dairy exports rose by nearly 25 percent in 2008 to $300 million.

Three men have been sentenced to death in China for their involvement in the melamine contamination, which led to the deaths of six children and made nearly 300,000 sick in China.

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