Hong Kong is seeking further cooperation with Macao and Guangdong Province of the Chinese mainland in
health, animal and plant quarantine and food safety.
A Health, Animal and Plant Quarantine and Food Safety Control
Meeting opened in Hong Kong Thursday to discuss the cooperation,
with the attendance of Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong and two of
Guangdong's cities Shenzhen and Zhuhai.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, the Hong Kong Secretary
for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow, noted that atypical
pneumonia, avian influenza and malachite green incidents underlined
the importance of gate-keeping work of health, inspection and
quarantine as well as food safety.
Chow said Guangdong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Macao and Hong Kong were
close neighbors with heavy volume of passenger and freight flow
between these places. With further development in regional economic
co-operation, the Mainland, Macao and Hong Kong had to further
strengthen cooperation on this front.
He added that sound foundation had been laid in co-operation in
health, and inspection and quarantine of the Mainland, Hong Kong
and Macao in the past few years. In-depth exchange and co-operation
were realized in the prevention of avian influenza, refinement of
food safety regulatory regime and port health incidents.
Chow expected that through exchange among experts, the technical
standard of health, animal and plant quarantine and food safety
could be raised to facilitate the implementation of health and food
safety regulatory measures and further refinement of existing
co-operation mechanism and information exchange.
"To ensure the safety of Mainland food for supply to Hong Kong,
we have to exert our best efforts to perform gate-keeping work by
control at source and stringent inspection and quarantine before
export," he said.
Topics of discussion in the two-day meeting included inspection
and quarantine on health, fruits and vegetables, aquatic products,
plants, animal and food livestock as well as the management of food
safety of poultry eggs, laboratory standard and technicality.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2007)