Brussels, 05/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Union, China and the US have decided to strengthen their cooperation in food safety by sealing an unprecedented trilateral cooperation agreement to protect consumer health.
This agreement concludes several years of discussion and was formally endorsed on Monday 2 November in Beijing by the three main global trade partners in the agri-foods field, during an official visit to China by the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis (1-5 November).
The US Food and Drug Administration, the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Food Safety and China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) formally recognised the need to strengthen their cooperation, “in a spirit of openness and the mutual knowledge to help build confidence”.
This trilateral cooperation will consist of exchanges of information on food safety, scientific and technical exchanges on food safety questions, regulatory cooperation to enhance response capacity to food safety problems, the organisation of joint meetings on food safety and other specific meetings that may be needed. At these meetings, the three parties will encourage participation of all other agencies involved in food safety questions.
China, the EU and the US are already cooperating at a bilateral level, particularly in the World Health Organisation (WHO). This inaugural trilateral cooperation will help 2 million consumers who make up a third of the world's population.
Shift from quantity to improved quality. China recently adopted the New (13th) Five Years Plan, which puts emphasis on issues like food security and food safety, environment, innovation, going global and improvements in the social welfare. In his speech on Wednesday, 4 November to the China International Food Safety and Quality Conference, Vytenis Andriukaitis welcomed this plan and said: “Where I see increasing possibilities for cooperation and for European businesses to benefit from increased trade and investment ties. This is a clear sign that there is a will to move from quantity to increased quality”. The Commissioner highlighted the fact that “Access to sufficient safe food is an essential requirement for human health. Yet, according to the World Health Organisation, deaths of an estimated 2 million people annually are linked to unsafe food”. He said that the challenge facing them was enormous because “globalisation (…) leads to an increasingly complex and longer global food chin, thus multiplying the hazards and risks for foods to become harmful for human health”.
During his visit, the Commissioner met ministers and senior officials from the health and food safety authorities, such as minister Jingquan, the head of the China Food and Drug Administration. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)