China has re-examined all its food safety standards and
abolished 208 national standards and 323 standards made by
different industries, according to sources yesterday at the General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
(GAQSIQ) and State Standardization Administration (SSA).
The message is that we will have unified and higher safety
standards for almost all our food. By the end of last year, we had
1,965 national standards for food safety. Of these, 634 were
compulsory. In addition, there were 2,892 standards established by
various industries.
Food safety standards are vital to both the health of the public
and the development of the food industry. The food we exported
overseas was sometimes found as falling below the standards
required by importing countries. This is not because the food
itself was of low quality but because the standards we use may be
lower.
It is becoming increasingly urgent to raise the food safety
standards to international levels. GAQSIQ and SSA have apparently
long realized the importance of this issue.
The two departments reduced the time limit from 12 years to four
years for revising food safety standards. The goal would bring a
complete overhaul by the end of the 11th Five-Year-Plan period
(2006-10). They want food safety standards to be revised every two
years by 2010.
This is good news for consumers. At the same time higher demands
will be imposed on food producers. But the higher standards can
hardly materialize without the cooperation of producers.
Creating higher standards is one thing. Enforcing those
standards to the letter is another.
Food producers who lower costs by ignoring the required
standards must be punished.
But higher food safety standards make sense only when government
watchdogs have teeth and bite those who fail to follow the
standards.
(China Daily July 4, 2007)