China to set food safety standards by 2015

BEIJING - China will accelerate its pace in setting up national standards of food safety in order to safeguard the public, a senior supervision official with China's Ministry of Health said Monday.

At a press conference, Su Zhi said that China had now formulated more than 2,000 national, 2,900 industry and 1,200 local standards that are related to food and additives.

"However, problems still exist in the present standards of food safety due to the restricted development of food industry and ability of risk assessment," Su said.

The standards will be set up by the end of 2015. According to the plan of setting up national standards of food safety, China will further improve the management mechanism of food safety and establish a normative and transparent working model.

The plan also asks for all related departments to study the national standards and urges food manufactures to follow the standards.

The ministry will publish a report on the standards relating to more than 5,000 kinds of food, as well as revising the regulations on food pollutants and pathogenic bacteria, Su added.