Press Releases
PSHWF visits European Food Safety Authority (with photos)
The Permanent Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Mrs Carrie Yau, today
(June 15, Italy time) visited the European Food Safety Authority in Parma,
Italy, to keep abreast of the latest European developments and maintain Hong
Kong's liaison with overseas food safety organisation.
Joined by the Consultant of Centre for Food Safety, Dr Ho Yuk-yin, Mrs Yau met
officials of the authority to learn more about how it carries out its work in
risk assessment and risk communication, as well as its work in providing
scientific advice on food standard setting and nutrition claims. As a
decentralised agency of European Union, the authority provides the European
Commission with independent scientific advice on all matters with a direct or
indirect impact on food safety.
"Food safety concerns have dominated the agenda of the global community as the
community worldwide becomes more health conscious. Consumers can now grasp the
latest situation on food contamination incidents via the internet and electronic
media," Mrs Yau said.
She said that with heightened awareness of food safety and growing expectation
for better food safety standards, keeping track of the latest development in
international food standards and regulations was crucial to the development and
implementation of effective food safety regulatory regime.
"Hong Kong needs to update the regulatory regime from time to time since we
import more than 90% of food from all over the world. Over-regulation may drive
food products away from the shelf, suppress supply and drive prices up
unnecessarily.
"We must strike a balance between safe, steady and varied supply of foodstuff.
Only in this manner can we maintain Hong Kong's brand name as a gourmet and
shopper paradise with offer of the widest possible range of both common and
niche food products to our consumers," she said.
In the first leg of her European visit, Mrs Yau visited the Food Standards
Agency in the United Kingdom on June 13 (UK time) to learn more about the
country's nutrition labelling requirements, food safety laws and regulatory
mechanism. She also held discussions with agency officials on a number of issues
including risk surveillance, assessment and management; control of food imports
and management of food incidents; and control of use of pesticide in food,
including setting of maximum residue limits.
Mrs Yau was told by agency officials that in European Union countries, including
the United Kingdom, nutrition information on food labels remained voluntary
except for food that carried claims, namely, pre-packaged food that advertise
contents such as "low fat " or "sugar free". The EU countries are working
towards requiring mandatory labelling for certain core nutrients on all food but
there was no definite timing.
"At the beginning, we proposed all pre-packaged foods will eventually be
required to carry labels with information on nine core nutrients plus energy.
However, we observe that this now seems to be a bit excessive since the 27
countries in EU are still implementing a voluntary scheme with the exception of
claims based products which are required to carry labels with no more than seven
core nutrients plus energy. We will continue to gauge people's views with an aim
to put forward a more balanced proposal.
"In EU, products that claim to be 'low sugar' are required to label energy plus
seven core nutrients - carbohydrate, protein, total fat, saturated fat, sugar,
sodium and dietary fibre. There is no consensus on whether transfat should be
labelled due to differences in dietary habits of various places, and there is
not yet an international standard set by the Codex on the regulatory level of
artificial transfat.
"We have to take note of the labelling requirements in the neighbouring region
as well as our major importing countries so that any system we put in place will
not be out of step."
She noted that if there was discrepancy in food labelling requirements between
Hong Kong and other places where food was imported from, it may affect the
stability and choices of food supply in Hong Kong.
During her stay in the United Kingdom, Mrs Yau also met the Permanent Secretary
of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ms Helen Ghosh, and
her team to exchange views on risk assessment for food of animal origin, live
animal and food import control, and regulation of pesticide residues.
Ends/Friday, June 15, 2007
Issued at HKT 18:09
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