Speech by Lin Wei, Deputy Director General of Import and Export Food Safety Bureau, AQSIQ

• The 11th Five-Year Plan on import and export food safety

Chinese government attaches great importance to import and export food safety. The “11th five year plan” on national food and drug safety allocates a whole section to import and export food safety setting explicit objectives for import and export food safety in the coming five years. The features are the following:

First, make efforts on systems construction. To establish and improve the import and export food safety management system is the most import part of the plan. It is explicitly stated that we will set up and improve a market access system on the quality and safety of import food, and build a science-based access procedure in line with international practice. And we are to establish and improve an export food safety management system featuring “one mode and ten systems”, i.e. the management mode of “company+base+standardization” with 10 management systems including the recording-keeping system of planting and breeding bases.

Second, emphasize science as the basis of management. The plan introduces concepts including risk analysis and classified management. The plan emphasizes that the access procedure must be science-based, sound and in line with international practice. The plan also explicitly requires the implementation of several scientific management systems including the import and export food safety and quality supervision program, diseases and epidemics surveillance program as well as pesticides and animal drugs residue surveillance program.

Third, give prominence to critical steps. The plan states that the prominence of port inspection is inspection on the residue of pesticides and animal drugs in food, food additives, pathogenic micro-organisms, toxic and hazardous substances as well as labels and marks. The plan proposes that the whole process of food exportation ranging from production to export is to be further improved with advanced means such as electronic surveillance.

Forth, pay more attention to safeguard measures. In the plan, it is explicitly proposed that in the coming 5 years we will enhance the construction of import and export food testing centers and the expert team, boost the food testing capacity, improve the import and export food safety information system, so as to enhance the overall technical capacity on import and export food inspection and quarantine.

Fifth, further define the responsibility of enterprises. The plan explicitly states we are to implement the tracing and recall systems on export food, build a risk alert and quick response system, implement a red and black list system of import and export food enterprises, and further emphasize the primary responsibility of enterprises on food safety.

• Chinese management of export food safety

As a developing country, the economic and social development of China lags behind that of developed countries, and its overall food safety situation including relevant standards and the industrialization of food production also need to be further improved compared with its developed counterparts. Meanwhile, China is of rich and diversified food resources, and its high-quality, delicious and inexpensive food products are appealing to a great deal of consumers at home and abroad. To ensure export food safety, Chinese government put in place a series of strict administrative measures as the following: first, inspection and quarantine record-keeping of planting and breeding farms, and only those with record-keeping are eligible to provide raw materials for export-oriented food production plants; second, sanitary registration of export food production plants, and only registered plants are permitted to produce food for exportation; third, monitoring by entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities on the export food production process; forth, export food has to be labeled or marked as required so as to make it easier for quality traceability and recall; fifth, pre-export batch-by-batch inspection by entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities, and only those qualified food are permitted to export. If required by the importing countries or regions, the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities also need to issue an official certificate for every batch of food exportation. The inspection, quarantine and supervision conducted by Chinese entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities over the whole process of food exportation from planting and breeding farms to export ensures effectively the safety of export food. In recent years, dozens of delegations from EU, the US, Japan, Korea, South and East Asian countries as well as other countries and regions paid site inspections on the export food management system of China, and they are all satisfied with the production, processing as well as quality and safety situation of Chinese export food and with the management of the Chinese government.

According to the statistics of our inspection and quarantine agencies, from 2004 to 2006, the annual food export of China to the US is 89,459, 81,754, 94,442 batches respectively, of which respectively 925, 845, 756 food batches are detained by the FDA of the US with the eligibility rate at 99.0 percent, 99.0& and 99.2 percent. Over the same period, the food export to Japan is respectively 324,245, 279,156, 275,446 batches, of which respectively 492, 395, 459 batches are inspected to have problems by Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, with the eligibility rate at 99.9 percent, 99.9 percent and 99.8 percent respectively. The annual food export to the EU in this period is respectively 96,988, 87,464, 91,322 batches, of which 151, 71, and 98 batches are notified by EU member countries as inferior products with the eligibility rate at 99.8 percent, 99.9 percent and 99 percent respectively.

The food supply for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is mostly from the Chinese mainland. According to the second food safety report issued by the Food Safety Center of Food and Environment Hygiene Department of HKSAR, the HK government conducted large-scale food sampling survey twice this year and the survey showed that the overall food eligibility rate in HK is respectively 99.2 percent and 99.6 percent.

All these statistics of at home and abroad show that on the whole the eligibility rate of Chinese export food is maintained above 99 percent.

• Recent measures

Chinese quality supervision, inspection and quarantine authority take seriously the problems in export food. The causes of those problems could be illegal export of enterprises, inefficient quality and safety control of enterprises, manufacturers' unacquaintance with the requirements of import countries, insufficient inspection by inspection and quarantine authority, and contamination in the process of shipment. Against the recently emerging problems, AQSIQ has taken the following measures on the basis of original administrative measures to further strengthen inspection, quarantine and supervision on export food. First, intensifying port inspection on export food and increasing the inspection rate. Once inconformity of goods and certificate or quality and safety problems found, the export will be suspended and alert will be issued to all the inspection and quarantine authorities via the website of AQSIQ so as to increase the inspection rate on all the food declared for inspection by this certain manufacturer, inspection declarant or inspection declaration agency. All the information is available on the website of AQSIQ. Second, intensifying the surveillance and random inspection on commodities other than those subject to statutory inspection like toothpastes to detect problems timely and adopt administrative measures accordingly. Third, requiring inspection and quarantine mark on the sale packages and shipment packages of export food which is inspected as qualified by Chinese entry-exit inspection and quarantine authority from September 1, 2007. Forth, notifying the import countries of the information of unqualified commodities and organizing prompt verification and analysis so as to take effective measures in time. Fifth, adopting blacklist system. While punishing the enterprises that violate related regulations in accordance with law, AQSIQ publicizes the blacklist on the website, severely striking the practice of illegal export.

Through these measures, the level of export food quality and safety has been raised considerably.