The city's food safety watchdog is closely monitoring freshwater fish for sale in local markets after its Hong Kong counterpart found last week malachite green, a cancer-causing chemical, in mud carp imported from Shunde, Guangdong Province.

"We have always been monitoring the freshwater products in the local markets, and more than 99 percent of the products passed inspections during the past 15 months," said Jin Huichun, an official with the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration.

He said turbot are the one fish not to pass inspection.

Jin said the SFDA will continue monitoring freshwater products, especially mud carp.

Fish vendors in Hong Kong have suspended the sale of more than 30 types of freshwater products including mud carp, white eels and loach, but the products are still on sale in Shanghai.

The Tongchuan Road Aquatic Products Wholesale Market, the city's largest seafood market, said the mud carp it sells have been inspected several times this year with no problems reported.

"Most of our mud carp come from Guangdong Province, the rest are from local fish farms," said Yang Lianfa, manager of the market.

Sales of mud carp have dropped from last week's 10 tons a day to just eight tons yesterday, said Yang.

The SFDA issued a warning on November 18, saying AOZ, a cancer-causing antibiotic was found in turbot, a flatfish, in the local markets. The questionable fish mainly came from Shandong Province.

China's Ministry of Agriculture yesterday ordered three companies in Shandong to stop selling and destroy all their turbot as the companies had used AOZ in the products.

The ministry has also imposed a fine on the three companies, but it wouldn't offer specifics on the financial penalties yesterday.

The SFDA also said yesterday egg products on sale in the city, including red-yolk salted duck eggs and fresh chicken eggs, are all safe to eat.

Food and drug regulators in other provinces have banned some brands of duck and chicken eggs after finding traces of the potentially carcinogenic dye Sudan-IV in the poultry products.

(Source: www.shanghai.gov.cn )