China will set soon up a central food safety commission, according to state-owned media last week. The new commission will be organized under the State Council, and is to help enforce new food-safety legislation meant to tighten supervision of manufacturers and impose tougher penalties on those who manufacturer defective items. The new law, approved by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, has been in the making for two years. It also sets up a system to recall problem products and authorizes the enforcement of uniform nationwide standards on nutritional labeling.

Reportedly, the commission’s task will be “to strengthen the country’s food monitoring system, whose low efficiency has long been blamed for repeated food scandals,” as China seeks to restore public confidence after a number of problems with tainted food. Presumably, that refers in part to the melamine scandal in which at least six infants died last year and nearly 300,000 were sickened by baby formula tainted by an industrial chemical that had been added to milk supplies to give the appearance of higher protein.

How effectively China maintains the safety of its food supply is increasingly important to consumers in other countries as well, as Chinese ingredients end up in foodstuffs sold around the world. Between 2004 and 2007, Chinese food exports climbed about 63%. Several tainted Chinese products led to mass tort litigation in the U.S.

The national food-safety commission is supposed to coordinate work by other government agencies, and reduce the number of agencies involved. United Nations public health experts last year called for an overhaul of China’s food-safety system, criticizing the country’s use of a patchwork of various local and national government agencies to police the food supply.