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South Korea, China to Launch Food Safety Committee

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Seoul, 25 October: South Korea and China will launch an inter- government committee to step up cooperation on preventing food scares such as those recently prompted by contaminated food imports, government officials said Tuesday [25 October. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the two Asian countries are holding working-level negotiations to pave the way for the creation of the committee. The ministry said the committee will be headed by vice minister-level officials from the two sides.

"The composition of the committee and timetable will be determined through consultations during this year's summit of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to be held in Pusan next month," a ministry official said. The move comes amid rising demand from South Korean consumers to toughen screening of imported food products from China after a series of revelations of Chinese imports contaminated with hazardous chemicals and disease.

To make matters worse, the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) announced on Friday that nine out of 16 Chinese kimchi samples tested recently were found to contain parasite eggs. Kimchi is a spicy food made of fermented cabbage and radish that accompanies almost every meal in South Korea. Parasite tests conducted on imported kimchi came after an opposition lawmaker late last month raised concerns over the safety of kimchi imports from China.

The KFDA said that it will release later this week the results of additional tests to confirm the existence of parasite eggs in kimchi products sold here, including 290 domestically produced brands. The back-to-back revelations of food contamination have sparked backlash, with China blasting South Korea for not delaying the announcement until it finished its own investigation. Beijing is threatening trade retaliation.

To deal with domestic concerns over food imports from China, the South Korean government promised to upgrade the nation's food screening system. "The recent food scare is a result of the nation's supply-centred food safety policies," Kim Chung-sook, commissioner of the KFDA said. "Negotiations are under way among related ministries to create a comprehensive consumer-centred food safety scheme." The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the KFDA are reportedly holding talks on how to overhaul and unify the nation's food safety system that is currently divided among several government agencies.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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