Delegates from 45 countries and regions yesterday issued a joint
declaration in Beijing to boost information exchange on food
contamination and disease outbreaks.
They also agreed that developed countries should help developing
nations build food safety capacities to ensure safer food for
all.
The Beijing Declaration on Food Safety came at the conclusion of
a two-day international forum that brought together experts from
the World Health Organization (WHO) and about 600 delegates from
nations including the United States, Canada, Australia, Malaysia,
Thailand and Japan.
"This is not the first international agreement related to food
safety... but it's the first time that we have countries getting
together and saying, 'let's recognize that it's a joint
responsibility and we should work together to improve it'," Jorgen
Schlundt, Geneva-based executive director of the WHO's Food Safety
Department, told reporters.
"In that sense, we believe that it's a significant step
forward."
The document urges all countries to:
establish procedures, including tracking and recall systems, to
rapidly identify, investigate and deal with food safety
incidents.
inform WHO of emergencies such as the outbreaks of mad cow
disease.
set up food and total diet monitoring programs with linkages to
human and food-animal disease surveillance systems to obtain rapid
and reliable information on food-borne diseases and hazards in food
supply.
Realizing that food safety standards could be used as a trade
barrier, the declaration stipulates that food safety measures
should be based on sound scientific evidence and risk analysis
principles and should not create trade barriers.
Urging cooperation between developing and developed countries,
it says equal application of food safety measures can improve
global food safety.
Li Changjiang, China's top quality control official, said the
declaration itself is a fruit of international collaboration.
He said the agreement will be regarded as "the important
principle for everyone to observe in future efforts to intensify
cooperation in international food safety".
Figures from China's General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine show that in the first half
of the year, 99.1 percent of Chinese food exported to the United
States and 99.8 percent of the exports to the European Union were
up to standard.
Japanese figures also suggest that 99.42 percent of Chinese food
sold to Japan last year was safe, higher than percentages for food
imported from the EU and the US.
(China Daily November 28, 2007)
