Brussels, 19/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - A new stage is set to begin in EU-China cooperation at the service of product safety, during the visit of John Dalli, the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, who arrived in China on Sunday (18-21 March). Together with Zhi Shuping, the minister of the general administration of quality supervision, inspection and quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ), the commissioner will sign a declaration of intent to launch the first joint monitoring exercise for non-food consumer products imported into the EU (more than half of all products imported from China by the EU). Prior to this, the two parties will debate the reasons for current concerns regarding imports into the EU of foodstuffs from China and bilateral cooperation in the safety of non-food products. The talks will also focus on ways of facilitating access to the Chinese market for European food products, which is still blocked by fastidious sanitary and phytosanitary procedures. China is still the largest country of provenance for dangerous non-food products identified on the European market, but EU-China cooperation is stepping up and beginning to pay off. Testifying to a slight drop in the number of alerts in 2010 (58% compared to 60% in 2009) is the latest annual RAPEX report, published in May of last year during the Chinese minister's visit to Brussels (see EUROPE 10377). (AN/transl.fl)