China to Establish the Most Rigorous Food Safety Law

On 6 Jun 2013, CFDA held a seminar on establishing the most rigorous legislative system for supervision over food and drug safety, during which officials stressed that the revision of Food Safety Law (FSL) 2009  would be imperative and urgent.

This seminar reveals the intention and determination of the government to introduce a much more comprehensive legislation system to reinforce the surveillance of food and drug. Experts from lawmaking departments, high-profile universities, research institutes as well as local authorities took part in the seminar to intensively discuss the serious food safety issues, as well as the weaknesses and loopholes of the existing FSL.

The FSL, the overarching food relevant law in China, plays a key role in regulating food production and trading activities, preventing food safety accidents and protecting  consumers’ well-being since its implementation in June 2009. However, the ever-changing food industry involving development of novel technology and emerging food safety problems, together with certain adjustment in the food safety regulatory system in the past four years have made the basic law incapable of comprehensively managing the food safety status quo.

Mr. Liu Peizhi, the deputy director of the CFDA, pointed out that in recent years the desire of both the government and the public to update the FSL has become stronger. Safe and clean food  is the basis of people’s well-being so it is a must to establish a scientific and comprehensive legal system to ensure the quality of food.

Reduce overlapping among the supervisory departments

Based on the practical experience drawn during food safety supervision work, the surveillance responsibilities of food-concerned departments need to be re-allocated to reduce overlapping in duties and avoid the phenomena that “many departments are involved in a single case of food scandal but no one actually takes any actions to deal with it”.

This year, a lot of changes happened following the central institutional reshuffle. The most significant one about food supervision is the SFDA’s reconstruction. The previous State Food and Drug Administration was renamed as China Food and Drug Administration and was elevated to be a ministerial level unit. The duty of supervising food production, circulation and catering service are integrated and designated under the CFDA. This reform is beneficial as resources are centralized which enables better and more efficient supervision on food issue instead of shifting duties around several departments with nothing achieved.

Introduce severer penalties to inhibit food safety issues

On this conference, experts reached a consensus that the  main reason of the frequent food safety problems is that some food companies abandon commercial integrity and sense of duty, while at the same time, have limited or even no legal consciousness. The priority for them is not to keep the product in good quality but achieve highest economic profit. Hence, more stringent  punishments on the food safety violating behaviors are expected to stipulate in the amendment of the FSL.

Seal up regulatory loopholes for on-line food trade

On-line shopping is ever prosperous in China and the trade volume of food products is also huge. Nevertheless, the specific regulation is lacking for  food products sold on line. Hopefully this regulatory gap could be filled in the revision.

Currently, an official from CFDA told Chemlinked reporter that CFDA is now bringing relevant supervisors and experts together and concentrating on detailed amendments of the FSL. According to Sichuan Food and Drug Administration, the amended draft will be ready at the end of Sept 2013.

In addition to internal discussion among insiders and professionals from food-related areas, the CFDA also hopes the public can be engaged in the revision of the FSL 2009. An electronic version with amendments to specific articles in FSL 2009 and reasons is required to send to spaqfxd@sfda.gov.cn before 15 July.