The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday it would ask fast food restaurants to change their cooking oil immediately if they fail on-the-spot tests for acid value.
“We have requested that our local bureaus increase the number of inspections of fast food restaurants,” Hsu Ching-hsin (許景鑫), spokesman for the Food Safety Bureau, said after a DOH meeting yesterday morning.
“Instead of granting them a grace period, inspectors will ask fast-food-chain operators to change the oil immediately if it fails a test,” he said.
Hsu said that the Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis was conducting a second arsenic test for McDonald’s and Domino’s after the two restaurants insisted that their own tests differed from that of the Taipei County Bureau of Health, which said their oil tested positive for arsenic.
The DOH said last night that results of its second test were negative.
Hsu said that the DOH had requested all local health bureaus to submit spare samples to the Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis for separate testing after inspecting fast food restaurants.
He said that the Taipei County Bureau of Health had inspected 10 fast food restaurants, including McDonald’s, MOS Burger, Domino’s and Burger King, again on Wednesday.
Spare samples from the 10 restaurants were submitted to the Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis, he said.
“Testing the oil for arsenic content was the primary goal,” Hsu said.
“We want to make sure that everything meets health standards,” he said.
He said the DOH was discussing new regulations on arsenic because current regulations only cover “new oil” and do not include “used oil.”
He said that inspectors from local health bureaus had launched large-scale random inspections of restaurants and food stalls that sell fried food.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS