BEIJING -- China's consumer quality watchdog said that 35,000 tonnes of imported food products failed to pass quality inspections last year, up 325.2 percent year on year.

Those products, coming from 82 countries and regions, had a total value of $56.54 million, up 135.5 percent year on year, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a white paper.

They failed examinations due to incompliance with Chinese laws, regulations and standards, and thus were not permitted to enter China, the paper said.

Top reasons for their failures included excessive amounts of additives, microbial contamination and substandard quality.

The administration described the safety situation of imported food as "generally stable."

In 2016, the administration improved the supervision network for imported food and conducted strict inspection and quarantine to ensure food safety, according to the paper.

"There were no major safety problems associated with imported food in the entire year," the authority said.

As people's lives improve, demand for imported food products has risen consistently. In the past five years, the value of China's food imports rose by an annualized rate of 2.6 percent.