Following a string of nationwide food problems in recent months,
the State Council Wednesday vowed to redouble efforts in ensuring
food safety.
"Food safety is related to people's health and lives and has a
bearing on sound economic development and social stability," a
statement from a State Council executive meeting in Beijing said.
Premier Wen Jiabao presided over the meeting.
Despite the decline in the number of cases related to fake and
shoddy foods, problems remain rampant in the market, calling for
more conscientious measures to correct the hazards, the statement
said.
The meeting heard a report from the State Food and Drug
Administration. Details of the report were not immediately
available.
But a Ministry of Health source Wednesday said food poisoning
sickened 4,700 and killed 97 people in the second quarter of this
year, a jump of 188.5 per cent and 64.4 per cent, respectively,
over the first three months.
The most notorious case involved tainted milk powder in Fuyang,
in East China's Anhui Province, which caused the death of a dozen
babies.
The case, reported in April, aroused nationwide attention about
food quality and safety.
Reiterating the central authorities' commitment to highlighting
food safety, the meeting's statement said various agencies have
been rectifying matters by eliminating illegal activities such as
counterfeiting and making inferior food products.
As a result, the situation has started to improve.
The meeting appealed for greater efforts to increase the
industrial safety levels and standardization in the country's food
sector.
In addition to shutting down food processors that fail to meet
safety standards, substandard products should be denied access to
markets, the statement said.
As to farm produce, the meeting stressed pollution prevention
should be done at the source of production, and a unified safety
and quality regime should be established for agricultural
products.
Also, supervision of food distribution should be stepped up,
according to the meeting sources.
The State Council meeting also called for a crackdown on major
criminal cases regarding food security and improving the functions
of supervisory departments, grain associations and other
intermediary bodies.
Experts said it is important to drastically increase penalties
on those who give scant attention to food safety statutes.
Professor Hu Xiaosong of the China Agricultural University, said
current penalties to those involved in churning out problem food
are far from "costly" when compared to the profits they can
make.
For example, in addition to issuing a warning to food processors
failing to meet hygiene requirements, the Food Hygiene Law, enacted
in 1995, prescribes a meager 5,000 yuan (US$602) fine.
As to those running unlicensed food shops, fines are based on
the illegal incomes they have made -- up to five times their
income.
"In cases related to food safety, penalties should be so imposed
as to ruin a law-violating firm... in the end, all will be obeying
the laws and regulations (in food safety)," said Hu.
(China Daily July 22, 2004)