China Announces New Food Safety Plan, With Enhanced Sampling and Enforcement on Imports

China recently announced the broad outlines of a new food safety plan that seeks to implement a “world-leading set of food safety standards” by 2035, said a report by state-run news agency Xinhua. Utmost efforts should be made in developing standards, conducting regulation, imposing penalties and seeking accountability, the plan said, according to Xinhua.

According to an unofficial translation of the document, issued as an opinion from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the food safety effort seeks to address microbial and heavy metal pollution, excess pesticide and drug residues, irregular use of additives and counterfeiting. It calls for “the most stringent standards, the strictest regulations, the most severe punishments, and the most serious accountability to further strengthen food safety.”

China will accelerate the formulation and revision of food safety standards and establish a food safety traceability system under the scheme. Companies will be responsible for adequately training and equipping their employees, and operations will be shut down quickly if food safety issues become apparent, the plan says. China will also accelerate the establishment of a certificate system for edible agricultural products and increase the frequency of sampling, it says.

Specifically for imports, China will incorporate foreign places of production and Chinese importers into the customs credit management system and “implement differentiated supervision.” It will also implement regulations focusing on e-commerce food safety risks, and cross-border cooperation mechanisms on information sharing and law enforcement, the plan says.