Q & A for resident journalists

Answers to most frequently asked questions such as...

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SICIV - Center for Int’l Visitors

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Shanghai Radio: The media handout showed that Shanghai uncovered and handled 8,037 food safety cases in 2011 and made fines totaling 56.48 million yuan. Is the crackdown effective to reduce the number of new cases?

Would you please briefly talk about the evaluation of pesticide residue on farm goods and health risks of tonic products?

Yan Zuqiang: Making fines is not the only tool in our fight against food safety violations. We also issue warnings, suspend the operation of violators, or revoke their business licenses. The 56.48 million yuan of fines we made has all gone to the state treasury.

Gu Zhenhua: Thank you for paying attention to risk evaluation which uses scientific methods to judge how harmful some food products are to human health. It’s a new practice after the national government enacted the Food Safety Law in 2009. It’s also recommended by the WHO for governments of various countries to solve their food safety problems.

In October 2011 the State Council established the Food Safety Risk Assessment Center. Shanghai is actually the first among the provinces and municipalities to conduct food risk assessment as we began the work back in 2010. We formed an expert board and adopted a local regulation. Last year we investigated the problems of pesticide residue on farm produce and the use of illegal additives in tonics sold in local markets, and we gave suggestions and warnings based on the test analysis.

Yin Ou: The Ministry of Agriculture conducted sample tests on Shanghai’s farm products every quarter last year and the city scored highest among all the provinces and municipalities in the ministry’s food safety tests. Therefore, I think the problem of pesticide residue in Shanghai is well under control.

We are now educating local farmers to use pesticides safely and to use only safe pesticides.

The municipal government recommends local farmers to use high-effect, low-residue pesticides and encourages them to switch to safe pesticides with cash subsidies.

Eastday: A question for Mr. Yan. You just mentioned that a regulation on street food vendors will soon be introduced. Can you elaborate on it? I heard that the regulation issued last year actually lowered the business threshold for food vendors and brought more vendors under government management. Is the new regulation based on the same concept? Also, how do you define food vendors and when will this regulation come into force?

Yan: The new regulation is more or less the same as the Shanghai Regulation on Food Safety adopted on September 1, 2011.

The new regulation has been made more practical. For example, we require food vendors to move indoors whenever possible and do business in designated spots and hours. We also demand food vendors to register with local communities for supervision.

We have published the provisions of the draft regulation on the website to solicit public opinions and now we’re making adjustments according to market needs. For example, we don’t think street vendors can supply seafood and some cold dishes because they have more risks in food hygiene. In the next one or two years we will continue to amend the regulation to make it more sophisticated.

Dragon TV: My question is about food safety monitoring and evaluation. What technical standards do you use to monitor and evaluate food safety risks? Is Shanghai using its own standard?

Gu: Many domestic food safety inspectors including those in Shanghai have excellent examination equipment and methods that meet the international standards. Our ppb food tests are the same as those conducted worldwide.

There are two sets of test standards, though. We use the Chinese standards in most evaluation, but for hazards not covered by our national standards, we use the international standards made by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).

In risk assessment, we try to integrate the domestic standards with the international rules, and we draw conclusions based on overall analysis.

Shanghai Daily: It is reported that olive oil imported from Italy was recently found unqualified. Can you tell us if the city will adopt some new measures in 2012 to ensure the safety of edible oil?

Yan: I can tell you that edible oil is placed under Class-A food inspection and edible oil products sold in Shanghai are quite safe. We employ various methods to monitor the whole process from production to delivery and market sales of edible oil products. We didn’t find a single batch of unqualified edible oil in Shanghai last year. If some cooking oil is deemed dubious in quality, we will suspend its sales until it is proven safe.

Last year we ordered 276 edible oil suppliers to improve their quality control and they all met our strict standards. This year we will intensify supervision of restaurants and track the origin of their oil by examining their account books.

We are also looking for better methods for quick oil analysis in our sample tests and we hope to make a technology breakthrough. The Ministry of Health is also working on this. We are doing our best to ensure edible oils sold in the Shanghai market are safe.

Guangzhou Daily: Mayor Han Zheng made an emphasis last year that Shanghai should lead the country in the compulsory installation of oil filters in restaurants and every restaurant should have one by the end of next year. So far, how many Shanghai restaurants have already installed oil filters? And how will the authority supervise the enforced practice of oil separation?

Yan: Oil separation is very important for proper disposal of kitchen wastes. There are about ten Shanghai enterprises engaged in developing oil separation tanks and they are already testing their products. If their products and technologies prove successful and meet the environment protection standards in our appraisal, we may promote them by administrative means. We welcome the public to participate in their evaluation and supervise their usage in the future.