China’s New Food Safety Measures on Supervision and Administration of Imports and Exports

On Sep 13, WTO issued a notice on Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Import and Export Food Safety (draft) submitted by China AQSIQ, which is open for public comment until Nov 11, 2017.

Compared with the 64 articles of the previous Measures for the Administration of Imported and Exported Food Safety (AQSIQ Order No. 144) implemented in March 2012, this new draft contains just 57 articles.

Important articles on foods for import in China in new draft:

1. Article 4 defines producers and operators of food and related import and export specifications.

2. Article 5 specifies that supervision methods include but are not limited to exporting country (region) system evaluation, overseas food manufacturer registration, filing of export and import, quarantine permission, exporter (region) official certificate verification, qualified certificate documents check, spot-check and import and sales recording check etc.,

3. Article 8 points out the requirements for food without comparable chinese national food safety standards, new food raw materials and foods produced with new food raw materials.

4. Article 10 specifies that overseas food manufacturer should apply for registration to AQSIQ for required food categories.

5. Article 12 states that food importers should set up a verification system of overseas exporters and manufacturers to verify the following aspects: food safety risk prevention and control, food protection, food label compliance and credit condition.

6. Article 18 stipulates that the 7 types of imported food listed below should submit a relevant license document:

• Foods without comparable chinese national food safety standards

• New food raw materials

• Foods produced with new food raw materials

• Special foods required for registration or filing like Health food, FSMP and infant formula

• Genetically modified (GM) foods

• Foods produced from endangered animal/plant

• Others

1. Article 27 states that importers should be responsible for the review of the labelling of imported prepackaged foods as well as the losses caused by non-compliant labelling.