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The Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, has visited the European Commission and a number of Belgian government departments/agencies responsible for food safety management and health care services on his arrival in Belgium.
Dr Chow was in the second leg of his duty visit to Europe which covers the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland to learn about these countries' food safety control regime and health care system.
Meeting with the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Markos Kyprianou, Dr Chow gave an account of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's developments in the 10 years of its establishment. The Commissioner was glad to learn about the progress Hong Kong had been making in particular in regard to its proposed mandatory nutritional labelling law and the consideration for the control of trans-fat in food.
The Commissioner noted that the European Union was in the process of consulting its 27 member states for a consensus on the ingredients to be put under mandatory monitoring. It was the EU's intention that a respective law could be drawn up in two years.
Dr Chow was of the view that if the process and timing of mandatory nutritional labelling of Hong Kong and the importing countries, including the EU, could be aligned, the supply of food to Hong Kong would be saved from any jeopardy.
The Commissioner acceded to a request by Dr Chow that a mechanism be drawn up between the European Commission and the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau to facilitate future dialogue on issues related to food safety monitoring and infectious disease control. Both sides also looked forward to more frequent exchanges of expertise in the future.
In a separate meeting with the Health and Consumer Protection directorate, Dr Chow had a good exchange of views with the experts over various issues, including nutritional labelling, control of trans-fat content and genetically modified food.
Calling at the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain, Dr Chow was given an introduction to the system of monitoring and control of safety food import and market supply regulation.
He was informed that most European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, as a member of EU, all subscribed to the EU's standard of control of food import and did not have to manage a system of their own.
Belgian officials were appreciative of the fact that Hong Kong had to work on a more sophisticated monitoring system as import accounted for more than 90 per cent of its food supply.
A meeting with the Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment afforded Dr Chow of a good understanding of the Belgian health care system, which relying heavily on social insurance, offered patients a free choice between the public and private sector for provision of medical care.
Dr Chow took the opportunity of his stopover in Brussels to pay a courtesy call to the Chinese Ambassador to Belgium, Ms Zhang Qiyue.
After attending the World Health Organisation's "60th World Health Assembly" in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 14, Dr Chow will return to Hong Kong on May 15.
Ends/Friday, May 11, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:07
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