The State Council will set up a new, centralised commission to supervise the country’s much-criticised food industry after a string of embarrassing scandals that have left hundreds of thousands of people sick and tarnished China’s international image.
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Commission overseeing food safety to be set up
Choi Chi-yuk
26 February 2009
The State Council will set up a new, centralised commission to supervise the country’s much-criticised food industry after a string of embarrassing scandals that have left hundreds of thousands of people sick and tarnished China’s international image.
The lack of an efficient and powerful food watchdog has long been criticised by the public. People are calling for a drastic overhaul of the food supervision system to improve the country’s abysmal safety record.
A draft law on food safety submitted to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee yesterday proposed the formation of a food safety commission.
The new commission would oversee and co-ordinate all work concerning food safety, Xinhua said. The draft law was likely to go to the vote on Saturday after a fourth reading.
The mainland’s current food safety system involves at least five central government departments - health, agriculture, quality supervision, industry and commerce, and food and drug supervision.
These shoulder different responsibilities for food safety. For example, the quality supervision administration monitors food production. But when foods leave factories for sale, they are monitored by the industry and commerce administration.
Liu Xirong, vice-chairman of the NPC Law Committee, told Xinhua that even though the draft clearly defined the responsibilities of the departments, lawmakers still believed that one single organisation was needed to supervise and co-ordinate the work of those departments.
“After serious study of the suggestion, the State Council decided to set up a food safety commission as a high-level co-ordinating organisation,” Mr. Liu said in an explanatory report to the lawmakers.
However, the draft bill, which would come into effect on June 1 once adopted, does not say what responsibilities the food safety commission would have.
“Its function should be stipulated by the State Council,” the draft says.
The draft has been revised several times since it was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for a first reading in December 2007.
Sources with the NPC Standing Committee’s Commission for Legislative Affairs said the draft had been expected to be voted on by lawmakers in October, but the vote was postponed following the tainted dairy products scandal in September, in which at least six babies died and 290,000 others fell ill.
“The tainted dairy scandal exposed the loopholes of the food safety monitoring network; the failure of the pre-warning, reporting, inspection systems,” a lawmaker told Xinhua. Key revisions were made following the scandal, he said.
“Many focused on the monitoring system, which is also the most difficult part of the draft,” he said.
Other revisions included a ban on all chemicals and materials other than authorised additives in food production.
To better protect consumer rights, the draft bans food safety supervision and inspection agencies, food industry associations and consumers’ associations from advertising food products.
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