BEIJING – China pledged to improve food safety Monday after authorities detained six more people in the country's contaminated milk scandal as the government increases efforts to restore public trust in Chinese-made food products.

The arrests brought to 32 the number of people detained in connection with the scandal.

The head of China's quality watchdog said the country is also stepping up checks on its exports to ensure they conformed to the food safety standards of recipient countries, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Further evidence of China's ongoing effort to restore public trust in its food products came during a meeting of the State Council, or cabinet, where the government vowed to inspect every link from farm to dinner table in an overhaul of the dairy industry.

It also said it would punish companies and officials involved in the contamination of milk products – a practice that has been blamed for killing four babies and sickening more than 54,000 children with kidney stones and other illnesses in China.

The tainted milk exposed “that China's dairy production and circulation has been chaotic and supervision has been gravely absent,” a notice about the meeting on the government's Web site said.

“The milk product safety incident caused great harm to the health and lives of babies, and also brought a very bad influence over the dairy and food industries,” the notice said. Unlawful “elements” and companies had also put profit above people's lives, it said.

Monday's meeting, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, is the latest move by the Chinese government, which is scrambling to show it is tackling the widespread contamination of milk powder and other milk products by the industrial chemical melamine.

“Food safety concerns not only the health of the public, but also the life of business,” said Wang Yong, the director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the agency responsible for ensuring that China's food supply chain is safe.

Wang, who replaced Li Changjiang, the former director who resigned last month in the wake of the scandal, vowed to make “a substantial change in the production and distribution of dairy products.”

Part of the agency's clean-up effort was the deployment in mid-September of more than 5,000 inspectors to check dairy factories. Wang said the inspections covered all dairy producers across the country to monitor the entire production process around the clock.

China has struggled to contain public dismay and growing international concern over the latest scandal, castigating local officials for negligence and making arrests while promising to raise product safety standards.

The quality watchdog said Sunday no melamine was found in tests of milk powder produced after Sept. 14, when the melamine contamination scandal broke.

Police in Hohhot, in northern China's Inner Mongolia region detained six suspects for allegedly mixing the industrial chemical melamine into raw milk, a city spokeswoman said Monday.

The spokeswoman, who refused to give her name as is common with Chinese bureaucrats, said the six were being questioned. She declined to say when the detentions took place or give other details.

The arrests followed an investigation into two major Chinese milk companies based in Inner Mongolia, Xinhua said.

Also Monday, Japan ordered the country's farm cooperatives and other industrial groups to increase inspections of animal feed and pet food imported from China to make sure they don't contain melamine, Agriculture Ministry official Satoshi Motomura said.

The order comes after Beijing said several Chinese feed makers allegedly mixed melamine into their products used for dairy cows. Motomura added, however, that the ministry has so far received no reports of melamine contamination.

On Sunday, health officials in Hong Kong found high levels of melamine in chocolate produced in China by British candy maker Cadbury.

Hong Kong officials said they found melamine in samples of two chocolate products made by Cadbury at its Beijing factory. The chocolates are among 11 Chinese-made products already recalled by the company throughout the Asian and Pacific regions.

The scandal has sparked global concern about Chinese food imports and recalls in numerous countries of Chinese-made products including milk powder, cookies and candies.

Iran's Healthy Ministry, for instance, was quoted on state radio Sunday as saying it would ban the import of all Chinese dairy products until further notice.

Quality supervisors have been stationed in milk powder production facilities since the scandal broke to oversee the process.

Chinese authorities believe suppliers trying to boost output diluted their milk, then added melamine because its nitrogen content can fool tests measuring protein content.

Associated Press writer Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this story.