(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-04 17:52

TOKYO - The Japanese government will send a team of officials and experts to China to investigate a food poisoning case involving Chinese-made frozen dumplings, government officials said Monday.

At a news conference, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said the four-member team will be dispatched to conduct on-the-spot inspection of the factory and exchange views with officials of the Chinese government.

The mission will depart as soon as possible, Machimura said.

The top government spokesman also said that the two sides "are finding out various facts little by little."

While suspicious clues such as small holes on some packages remain unexplainable, it's currently still unknown whether the food products were contaminated during the production and transportation process in China.

Although at least several hundreds throughout Japan have reported discomfort due allegedly to having related Chinese food in the last several days, the number of people confirmed by the Japanese government as suffering from eating the poisoned dumpling remained at 10.

It remains mysterious that how the pesticide substance called methamidophos got into the food products by huge amount since the Chinese producer, the Tian Yang Food Plant in north China's Hebei Province, never used such material in its factory.