The Director of the Food and Health Bureau of Hong Kong, Mr. Chow Yue, said that the Food Safety Bill was being enacted to require food importers and distributors to register with the food safety authorities and to require people in the food industry to keep records of all food sources and distribution so that the authorities can trace food accidents more quickly. The source and distribution of the problem food, and take appropriate measures to reduce the impact.

 

The bill also empowers the food safety authorities to issue orders prohibiting the import or sale of food in question and to issue food recovery orders when necessary.

 

 

 

In a written reply to Legislative Councilor Liu Jianghua's question today (May 21), Chow Yue said the proposed measures would help the authorities prevent food from flowing into the market or continuing to sell when there are reasonable grounds to believe that some of the questioned food would endanger public health.

 

 

 

He pointed out that it was the responsibility of importers, wholesalers and retailers of food to ensure that the food sold was suitable for human consumption and complied with relevant legislation.

 

 

 

Over the past three years, the Food Safety Center has taken about 2,300 canned food samples for testing; about 400 of them have been tested for microorganisms with satisfactory results.

 

 

 

About 1,900 samples were tested for chemicals, 12 of which were detected, including trace amounts of veterinary drug residues and slightly exceeding the standard preservatives, but did not affect health under normal eating conditions. The origin of the 12 canned foods includes mainland China, Asia and North America.