U.S. Food Safety Agency's Plan Fails to Impress

Hong Kong experts believe new mainland offices opened by the US Food and Drug Administration are a business-related move rather than one for food safety.

The city, according to the experts, is unlikely to enjoy a direct benefit from the U.S. agency's move.

The FDA offices are in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with the mainland sending food and quality control officials to the United States.

At the opening of the Beijing office yesterday, FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said they were looking forward to working with the central government and manufacturers to ensure that FDA standards for safety and manufacturing quality are met before products are shipped to the United States.

Of the $320 billion in goods the United States imported from China last year, about $4.4 billion were food products.

The FDA plans to establish offices in the coming months in India, Latin America and Europe.

But Thomas Chan Yan-keung, director of the Centre for Food and Drug Safety at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the offices appeared to be more for business.

Source: The Standard