The Ministry of Health (MoH) is working on a draft law on food safety to lay down a complete legal foundation for the management of food hygiene and safety in the country.
In order to avoid overlapping responsibilities for food safety management among concerned ministries and localities, according to the draft law, the MoH would be assigned to perform the state management of food safety nationwide while local administrations would take charge of food safety in their localities.
Specifically, the MoH would control food processing and trading activities in the country and manage domestically processed or imported food products. Managing fresh food, both home-made and imported, would be the duty of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). The Ministry of Industry and Trade, the MoH and the MARD would share the responsibility for inspecting and examining food safety in the marketing process.
The draft law contains new provisions on food advertising and labeling; imported and exported food; control of food contamination and response to, prevention and remedy of food poisonings; grant of food production eligibility certificates and food testing.
Under the draft law, food production and trading are a conditional business line. Management of food safety would be carried out on the basis of analyzing possible risks in all stages of food production, processing, trading, marketing and consumption as well as import and export.
The draft law also specifies prohibited acts in food production and trading, including using non-food materials or leftover food for food processing; using banned food additives or food-processing supports; producing or trading in pre-packed food without labels or food banned from production or trading for epidemic prevention and control purposes. In addition, acts of selling food which fails to meet standards shown on food labels, deliberately supplying untruthful information or falsifying food testing results are also prohibited.
The draft law would be submitted to the National Assembly for comment at its year-end session in October and, once enacted, it would supersede the 2003 Ordinance on Food Hygiene and Safety.-