Speech by Wu Jianping, Director of the Department of Supervision on Food Production, AQSIQ

On April 17, 2007, the General Office of the State Council promulgated the 11th Five-year Plan on National Food and Drug Safety (Hereinafter referred to as the 11th Five-Year Plan), which is the first specialized plan for food safety at the national level. The 11th Five-year Plan, which is regarded as the program guiding the food safety supervision during the 11th Five-year Plan Period, clarifies the direction and key tasks for food safety work during the 11th Five-year Plan Period. According to the functions granted by the State Council, quality inspection and supervision authorities are in charge of quality supervision during food production and processing as well as daily sanitary supervision. According to the 11th Five-year Plan, food production and processing are the very source for food safety control and also the most critical part in food safety supervision. Our quality inspection and supervision authorities will give the-whole-process supervision from the very source and focus on prevention in order to better fulfill our obligations according to the unified requirement in the 11th Five-year Plan. In the 11th Five-year Plan period, we are striving to improve the quality of our supervision team and our administrative law enforcement capability, to further improve our testing methodology, and to perfect the standardization system for food safety. So that, the supervision mechanism for food production will be constantly perfected; the order of food production and processing will be improved; the illegal practice of producing and processing counterfeit and inferior food will be effectively controlled; thus, food quality and safety can be guaranteed from the very source.

During the 11th Five-Year Plan period, our quality inspection and supervision authority will comprehensively strengthen our supervision and management work in the following aspects:

• Improve the market access system for food and food-related products

So far, according to our national standards, AQSIQ has included 525 varieties of processing food under 28 categories into the quality and safety market access system. The market access system for 7 categories of food-related products, including food package, container, etc. has been launched. Altogether, 104,716 copies of food production license have been issued, and 2,386 copies of food-related product production license have been issued. The market share of those food producers who have obtained market access has exceeded 90 percent. We will clarify our unified requirements in the 11th Five-year Plan and focus on the following 4 aspects concerning market access. Firstly, the issuance of food and food-related product production license should be accelerated. By the end of this year, for the 28 categories of food, their producers will be examined and punished if they produce the food without the production license. In the 11th Five-year Plan period, the 7 categories of food-related products will also be included into market access system. So that, for the 28 categories of food, their producers will be examined and punished if they produce the food and food-related products without the production license. Secondly, the approval procedure will be stricter in order to guarantee the quality of license issuance. We will make the market access conditions stricter, unify the market access standards, standardize the access procedure and guarantee the time limit for access. Thirdly, we will strengthen the follow-up supervision over the enterprises which have obtained the production license. We will study and develop effective supervision measures for those enterprises which have obtained the production license. For those enterprises which can not pass our random test twice successively, which illegally use non-food materials and which purposely and abusively use food additives, we will cancel their production license. Fourthly, we will make great efforts to resolve the outstanding problems in the industry. We will pay close attention to and study the development of food and food-related product industry. We will raise clear requirements in the market access system.

II. Conduct special correction and improvement project for food safety

According to our survey on all the food processing companies in the country, 353,000 of them are small workshops with less than 10 employees. In order to enhance our supervision and management over these small workshops, we focus on special and regional correction and improvement project and the “Food safety improvement project to crack down on tens of thousands of illegal small workshops in thousands of townships from hundreds of key regions” to strengthen our daily inspection and to comprehensively implement the responsibility system for regional supervision. By the end of June, 2007, we have signed letter of commitment on food quality and safety with 206,739 small workshops. Recently, AQSIQ printed and distributed “The Opinions on Further Strengthen the Supervision over Small Food Producing and Processing Workshops”, which raised the working guidance of “Supervising, Standardizing, Guiding and Providing Convenience to the Public” and strengthen a series of supervision measures and emphasized three basic supervision systems as the follows. Firstly, the basic quality, safety and sanitary conditions should be improved. The small workshops which cannot meet the basic requirements must be improved before the deadline; otherwise they will not be permitted for production. Secondly, the distribution of the food produced by those small workshops should be limited. The food produced by the small workshops cannot be sold outside of county-level administrative region, and the sale in department stores and supermarkets must be strictly limited. Thirdly, small workshops must promise to the public that they will not use non-food material, they will not abusively use food additives, they will not use recovered food as the raw material, and their products will not be sold in the department stores, supermarkets and outside of the promised region in order to guarantee the basic food safety. With our efforts, we are striving to reduce the number of small food producing and processing workshops in the country by 50 percent by the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan Period and to effectively control the illegal production of counterfeit and inferior food.

• Strengthen national special examination and inspection over food producers

According to the requirements in the 11th Five-Yean Plan, we will define several key categories of food for national special examination and inspection every year, and the implementation is rolling every year. In our daily work, we emphasize “key areas, key enterprises, key food and key project”. That is to say, we strengthen our special examination over the food producers in the key areas, the key enterprises related to the 28 categories of food, the products with high risks like dairy products, meat products, non-food materials, food additives and other important safety and sanitary indicators. We can find the outstanding food quality and safety problems through the national special examination and recall those unqualified food. By the end of the 11th Five-year Plan Period, we will try to make this national special examination cover 90 percent of the enterprises and recall all the unqualified food.

• Make greater efforts to conduct risk surveillance for food safety

So far, we have conducted risk surveillance in 22 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) for 19 kinds of food additives and non-food materials under 15 varieties of food, including wheat flour, instant noodle and cake. We have obtained 3,921 effective surveillance data. On this basis, according to the unified requirement in the 11th Five-year Plan, we will further improve the food safety surveillance during food production and processing. Firstly, we will select the food with large daily consumption as our surveillance target, including foodstuff-processed products, dairy products, meat products, spirits, beverages, etc. We will focus on the surveillance over the use of non-food material and food additives which are likely to be used beyond its scope and limit. The items for surveillance will be gradually increased year by year. Secondly, we will enhance our study of food risk monitoring and control technology. So that, the data we collect can be more comprehensive, more scientific and more precise. Thirdly, the conditional regions are requested to gradually set up food safety and risk monitoring and control system for the traditional food and characteristic food with large consumption in the regions. So that, we can timely learn about the quality and safety status and find the outstanding problems. With the help of our surveillance, we can effectively guarantee food safety.

V. Crack down on food processed with non-food material and the illegal producers for food safety

In the end of 2006, our quality inspection and supervision authorities focused on the special action to severely crack down on food processed with non-food material and the illegal producers, and fruitful achievements have been realized. According to the approximate statistics in the end of May, 2007, our quality inspection and supervision authorities have sent the law enforcement employees by 330,000 person-times to intercept the counterfeit and inferior food with the value of 200,000,000 RMB Yuan and to close down 180 illegal food producers who produce fake food products. The business licenses for 37 enterprises have been cancelled by the industrial and commercial authorities and 11 cases have been handed over to the judicial branch. In the future, our quality inspection and supervision authorities will make more efforts to implement the requirements in the 11th Five-year Plan and focus on those enterprises that refuse to mend their ways despite of repeated admonition and punishment. Firstly, we will make more efforts to fight against counterfeit and inferior food, esp. the illegal producers. Secondly, we will intensify our supervision over the raw materials used in the food production and processing enterprises and fight against the illegal use of the non-food material. Thirdly, we will make more efforts to trace back and monitor the use of food additives by food producers. Fourthly, we will enhance our law enforcement for the cheap food mostly sold in rural areas. Fifthly, we make more efforts to supervise and urge our local quality supervision authorities to crack down on food processed with non-food material and the illegal producers. AQSIQ will supervise the examination of some key cases. For the cases related to different regions and different authorities, we will make coordination to conduct joint and thorough investigation.