CRI听力:China to Revamp Existing Standards of Food Safety

Food safety has become a nationwide concern in China after a spate of food safety incidents, such as food contamination and the illegal use of prohibited ingredients and additives in food production.

The Chinese government will begin to improve national food safety standards by revamping outdated standards, reviewing and abolishing any contradictions or overlapping standards and working out new regulations.

CRI's Su Yi has more.

Reporter:

China has more than 2,000 national food regulations and more than 2,900 industry-based regulations.

Many of the regulations overlap or contradict each other, since multiple government agencies were given the responsibility of compiling their own standards years ago.

According to a five-year plan of the Chinese government, 14 government departments, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture, will coordinate to finish revamping the existing standards by 2015.

Su Zhi is a senior supervision official with the Ministry of Health.

"We will start the revamping work on more than 5,000 standards in the near future. By the end of 2013, we will provide proposals on those existing standards: keeping, integrating, or abolishing them. And then try to finish the amendment of food safety law as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, the Chinese government will enhance its risk monitoring to ensure food safety.

Yan Weixing, a researcher with China National Center for Food Safety Rise Assessment, risk surveillance will become one of the important tasks.

"Based on the requirement of Chinese government, the risk monitoring work will cover both the urban and the rural areas. First, we will work on food and monitor chemical pollutants, pathogenic microorganisms and radioactive contamination in the food. Secondly, we will work on collective incidents of food safety, such as food poisoning and abnormal symptom. Thirdly, we will actively monitor foodborne diseases."

China plans to expand its risk surveillance on food contaminants and harmful elements to county level in 2015. The number of surveillance sites will also increase to almost 3,000 from over 300.

For CRI, I'm Su Yi.