Foodsectornews.com - Introduction of New Food Standards Law in China

Introduction of New Food Standards Law in China

Wednesday, 19 December 2007

The Chinese government has planned to implement a new food safety law to measure the quality standards of food items before they are launched in the market for consumption.

The government in China came up with a new food safety law to improve standards at all levels of production, as per Li Changjiang, who heads China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, according to the news published by Reuters .

This new standard, effective from January 1, 2008, will permit no “serious faults” in the process of drug manufacturing, as told by the Xinhua news agency, reports MWCNEWS.

In China, food safety is presently managed by some messy regulations and looked after by a minimum six major government agencies. However, there is no law implemented nationally which states the safety of food. Bringing this law into effect will improve food safety in China, thus ensuring good health of consumers.

Products in China are under scrutiny since recent times as quite a number of harmful chemicals have been discovered in all kinds of goods, ranging from pastes to toys and seafood. International anger picked up speed in March 2007 soon after a pet food commodity made in China was accused of causing deaths of dogs and cats in North America.

In 2004, fears in public grew in conjunction with food safety when some 13 babies died because of malnutrition in Anhui province, in east part of China, after they were made to consume fake non-nutritional milk powder. After that, the Chinese government has sort to tougher ways. As per the latest crackdown, at least 774 “criminal suspects” who manufacture or sell fake food or drugs were caught.

The law permits better ways of spreading information about safe food usage. Substantial fines are imposed to fake food manufacturing firms and irresponsible officials are punished. It should be easy for the Chinese government to blacklist accused companies to prevent any food export from China.

As per a Senior Research Analyst at RNCOS, “After countless illegal blames have been put on China, the Chinese food industry is facing international inquiry. However, the implementation of this new law could prove to be beneficial to the Chinese food sector. Now the reputation of Chinese food can be re-established at international level and many other countries can depend more on Chinese food. In addition to this, the confidence level of local consumers is sure to increase by the impending law.”