(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-17 21:35

China has established a complete law regime and technological guarantee system for food safety, said a white paper on China's food safety issued by the Information Office of the State Council on Friday afternoon.

The white paper, first of its kind, said China now has a complete law regime providing a sound foundation and good environment for guaranteeing food safety, improving food quality and regulating food imports and exports.

The specific laws include the Product Quality Law, Standardization Law, Metrology Law, Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products, Criminal Law, Food Hygiene Law, Law on Import and Export Commodity Inspection, Law on Animal and Plant Entry and Exit Quarantine, Frontier Health and Quarantine Law and Law on Animal Disease Prevention.

There are also at least 13 specific administrative regulations and 10 departmental rules regarding food safety, according to the white paper.

The paper said a food quality and safety standard system covering all categories, featuring a relatively rational structure and being fairly complete, has taken initial shape in China.

The Standardization Administration administers the country's food standardization work, while relevant departments under the State Council are in charge of specific food standardization work in respective sectors.

The paper said so far China has promulgated over 1,800 national standards concerning food safety, and over 2,900 standards for the food industry, among which 634 national standards are compulsory.

To solve such problems as food safety standards overlapping each other and poorly organized, China has sorted out over 1,800 national standards, over 2,500 industrial standards, over 7,000 local standards and over 140,000 enterprise standards, repealing more than 530 national and industrial standards.

Meanwhile, China has sped up the revision of over 2,460 national and industrial standards, issued over 200 new national standards, and worked out plans to enact 280 national standards. It also works hard to promote and enforce these standards, and urges food producing enterprises to strictly abide by them, said the paper.