Up to 84.7 percent of rural residents in China considered food safety a major concern when they go shopping, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Commerce.

Analysts said it was a result of the frequent food safety scares in country.

The ministry did not reveal how many people it surveyed, but said 36.4 percent of the rural population would buy low-priced goods rather than those with famous brands, down 7.3 percent from the year of 2005.

The ministry and 11 other government departments, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, had seized 189.7 tons of unsafe food and suspended the production of 5,947 illegal companies in a crackdown on unsafe products in the nation's rural areas.

Chinese rural residents often fall victim to low-priced, shoddy products, which is mainly attributed to lax supervision.

The Ministry of Agriculture said last week that it seized 1.53 billion yuan (US$196 million) worth of counterfeit agricultural production materials last year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2007)