China Tightens Supervision on Food Safety

Food safety is becoming a more serious concern in China since a series of confidence-shattering cases have recently caused public doubts about the authorities' ability to keep consumers safe. The Chinese government has issued several notices urging related departments to toughen up penalties and make greater efforts in safeguarding food safety. Zhang Mengyuan has more.

Chinese consumers have been confronted with frequent food safety problems recently, including tainted pork, dyed steamed buns and melamine-tainted milk. The State Council has issued a notice requiring departments concerned to establish food safety credit records of food processing companies by the end of this year.

Wang Shiping, professor of food safety from China Agricultural University, elaborates.

"The production of food includes many procedures from raw materials, processing, to transportation before it can arrive at the dinner table. To establish a credit record, there should be clear standards in each area to regulate the enterprises.

Records on every detail of food processing should be kept to highlight the responsibility when a problem occurres."

It's reported that departments in agriculture, quality supervision, industry and commerce, and food and drug supervision are required to establish credit records of food processing enterprises of all categories within their own administrating areas.

Ni Hong, secretary-general of Guangzhou Food Industry Chamber of Commerce, says they are cooperating with the Food and Drug Administration in making a better monitoring system.

"First, we will enforce training on food safety in enterprises concerned. Second, every food processing enterprise will assign a person to supervise the whole production process. Every material they use should have the QS (QualitySafety) certificate, and receipts are required in every channel of stocking."

A recent report from Shanxi Province in northern China says that by the end of May, food safety supervising organizations will be established in all cities and counties in the province.

But according to Professor Wang Shiping, the present punitive measures against food safety crimes are not effective enough, and they should be toughened up.

"The current penalty system is not serious enough. Some enterprises therefore violate regulations knowingly. Besides, although several departments are assigned in dealing with food safety problems, they are actually not taking their responsibility seriously."

Fifty three local officials who were partly responsible for several recent scandals involving the sale of melamine-tainted milk were punished last month. Some of them have been dismissed or demoted from their posts. Earlier this month, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued a circular requiring procuratorates at all levels to severely punish officials' misconduct in food safety related issues so as to prevent further incidents.

For CRI, I'm Zhang Mengyuan.