China's food and drug regulator, the State Food and Drug
Administration (SFDA), kicked off the 2006 food safety evaluation
campaign in 31 major cities on Friday.
The campaign, in its fourth year in China, aims to evaluate
local government food safety supervision performance and citizen's
satisfaction with food safety over the past 12 months.
Sun Xianze, director of the SFDA's food safety coordination
department, told a national food safety conference in Beijing on
Friday that 12 evaluation teams composed of officials from SFDA and
other governmental departments including the Ministry of Public
Security, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Commerce and
the Ministry of Health, will set off for the country's four
municipalities and 27 provincial or regional capital cities this
weekend.
Sun said the 2006 food safety evaluation campaign will cover
three major indices -- urban government performance, consumer
satisfaction and food safety inspection.
The China Consumers' Association has just finished investigating
the level of consumer satisfaction in the 31 cities, and official
inspection agencies have carried out the safety evaluation for some
specific items such as vegetables, wheat powder, and infant milk
powder.
The SFDA said it would publish the final evaluation result for
the 31 cities in a month.
The Chinese government has made a sustained effort to improve
food safety supervision in the last 12 months, with a series of
measures implemented nationwide. Experts said the annual food
safety evaluation campaign has helped to promote regional food
safety supervision.
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(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2007)