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The Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, today (September 2) briefed the Legislative Council's Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene on the immediate and long-term regulatory measures on aquatic food products to ensure they would be safe for consumption.
Dr Chow said a series of measures had been taken to enhance the safety of imported freshwater fish since the Government learned of the presence of malachite green in some freshwater fish. The Government had recently reached a consensus with the Mainland to monitor the safety of aquatic products at source.
"As it may take time for the Mainland to provide a list of registered fish farms supplying aquatic products to Hong Kong, we will help the trade pass the relevant information to Mainland authorities if they would like to apply for the incorporation of their Mainland supplying fish farms into the list of registered fish farms that are supplying freshwater fish to Hong Kong," he said.
Dr Chow said the regulation of aquatic food products was a long-term task. Therefore, the Government needed to implement multi-pronged measures and establish a comprehensive regulatory framework.
In this regard, the following immediate measures would be implemented:
* continued inspection at the import level, including inspection at Man Kam To Control Point and wholesale fish markets;
* discussions with the trade to promote self-discipline among operators so that they would acquire aquatic products only from registered farms and retain the purchase/sale records to enable the administration to trace the source of the products and take enforcement action;
* a request for cooperation from the trade by requiring all imports to be accompanied by health certificates. Imports without health certificates might be subjected to "hold and test"; and
* the Government Laboratory may provide private laboratories with appropriate technical assistance to enable them to conduct fish safety tests.
Dr Chow pointed out that as a long-term policy of food safety, the Government was preparing to set up a food safety, inspection and quarantine centre to ensure the safety of aquatic food products, as well as food safety in general.
"We are actively considering the need for amending our legislation to require all operators in the trade to register and that all aquatic products destined for Hong Kong should be accompanied by import and health certificates, to land at designated landing points and port of discharge, and to require suppliers to keep detailed sales records to facilitate source tracing," he added.
Ends/Friday, September 2, 2005
Issued at HKT 18:58
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