A ban on imports of selected agricultural products from China remains in place, a Council of Agriculture official said yesterday, after it was discovered that frozen vegetables imported from Japan had been produced in China.
Chang Shu-hsien, head of the council’s International Department, said the government had not eased the ban and would continue to crack down on Chinese agricultural products smuggled into the country.
Council officials said importing Chinese vegetables through Japan did not violate the ban as long as the vegetables contained in the packages were not on the list of banned items. They did not, however, say whether the packages from Japan had contained banned items.
After tainted milk powder that made thousands of babies sick in China found its way into Taiwan, scaring consumers, the discovery of Japanese-branded vegetables originating from China has prompted questions about their safety and marketing.
Hsiao Tung-ming (蕭東銘), head of the Bureau of Food Sanitation, said there was no cause for alarm.
“Many brands may come from Japan, but their farms are in the US or China. Basically, importing these companies’ products into Taiwan means that they meet Taiwan’s regulations,” Hsiao said.
Meanwhile, one Japanese brand selling frozen vegetable brands for three to four times the price of local vegetables has been improperly labeling its products and misleading customers, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported.
The importer’s label in Chinese did not identify the country of origin and was placed over a label on the original packaging that said the vegetables were from China, the report said.
As the packaging had information in Japanese and the label in Chinese identified the supplier as a Japanese company, consumers could assume the vegetables were from Japan, the paper reported.
The council said the ban on specific Chinese products had not been relaxed, nor had food safety standards eased.
To help enforce the regulations, the council has deployed a team of experts who assist customs authorities in determining the countries of origin of suspicious agricultural imports, Chang said.
Chang said that as of the end of last month, 1,417 Chinese agricultural products could be imported and 830 products were banned.
Among frozen foods, potatoes, sweet corn, red beans, soybeans, green asparagus and bamboo shoots may not be imported.
Frozen peas, beans, spinach, white asparagus, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms are permitted, the council said.
As for fresh vegetables, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, peas, beans and soybeans are all banned, the council said.
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