BEIJING - In the next five years, China's top health authority plans to make ensuring food safety into one of its "major health service projects", in a change meant to better protect the public from occasional food safety hazards.

Health Minister Chen Zhu made the remarks at a national conference on food safety and health inspection held in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province, according to a circular posted on the health ministry's website on Monday.

"Reducing and eliminating food-safety problems and related crimes is a long, arduous and complicated process," he said. "It needs enhanced coordination and cooperation among related departments like the Ministry of Health and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine."