A Hong Kong health official made a rare public complaint yesterday about China taking five days to explain why a massive pork recall was ordered just across the border in Shenzhen.
The pork recall last weekend caused a big health scare in the territory, which imports much of its pork and other food from China.
Hong Kong officials first found out about the massive pork recall last Saturday through media reports, Eddy Chan (陳育德), deputy secretary of the Health, Welfare and Food Department, told lawmakers.
"At that time, we had not received any notification from Shenzhen about the reason behind the operation," Chan said.
He complained that a formal letter explaining why the pork was being recalled finally arrived from Shenzhen on Thursday -- five days after the recall began.
"They forwarded the reasons to us rather late," Chan said.
He said Shenzhen officials recalled the pork because they feared that some pigs might have been infected with the swine-borne illness streptococcus suis, which recently killed 39 people in Sichuan Province. But he said Shenzhen reported the pork tested negative for the bacteria.
Hong Kong Health Secretary York Chow (
Communication between Hong Kong and the mainland has long been a sore spot between the two sides. It became an issue of extreme concern for Hong Kong after the 2003 outbreak of SARS.
Yesterday, some lawmakers urged Hong Kong officials to be tougher on their mainland counterparts.
Legislator Vincent Fang (方剛) said, "Sometimes being nice is not going to be useful. If you just say maybe our measures are better than yours, they won't listen to you."
Fang suggested that Hong Kong station health experts on the mainland could quickly check out reported problems.
Meanwhile, the territory's residents were told not to buy eels from China after tests yesterday confirmed the presence of a suspected cancer-causing chemical in the imports.
Eleven of 14 eels from China tested this week were found to contain malachite green, Chow told legislators yesterday.
Malachite green is a chemical used to treat parasitic infections at fish farms. It has been been banned in the US and the EU.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS