Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday urged the Ministry of Health and Welfare to require importers of Japanese food products to clearly label the place of origin in Chinese instead of in code, in an effort to prevent the recurrence of fraudulent origin labeling.
DPP legislators Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) and Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) made the demand at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee in Taipei.
Several ministry officials were asked to deliver reports and answer questions at the meeting about the ongoing labeling scandal involving more than 350 imported foodstuffs believed to have been manufactured in Japan’s Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures, which have been placed under an import ban since the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) told the committee that officials have examined more than 3,000 products and identified 348 codes used by Japanese food companies to indicate which factories manufactured the foodstuffs.
The officials promised to submit a report on the matter and in response to the lawmakers’ demand within two weeks.
FDA Northern Center for Regional Administration senior specialist Wang Te-yuan (王德原) said some Japanese food firms have their own coding system to represent the manufacturing location for each of their products, generally consisting of one or more English letters and sometimes even numerals.
“The code is usually printed next to a food item’s expiration date. However, as Japanese firms are not legally required to print such a code on the package, some of them simply list the location of their companies, rather than the factory where the product is actually produced, as the place of origin,” Wang said.
Wang said that following the labeling scandal, Taiwanese firms planning to import food items from Japan are required to identify the location of factories where the products were manufactured and provide the information on the goods’ customs declaration form.
During the meeting, Liu also accused the ministry and the FDA of attempting to cover up for Taiwanese firms that illegally imported the food products using falsified origin labeling.
Liu said an assistant researcher responsible for border inspection at Keelung Harbor surnamed Ko (柯) filed a document with his superior on March 4 requesting that the import permit of Taipei-based Sheng Yu Trading Co (盛裕貿易) be revoked after discovering on Feb. 26 that the company’s imported soy sauce products had falsified origin labels.
“The document was later referred to FDA Northern Center for Regional Administration Director Feng Jun-lan (馮潤蘭) on the same day after Ko’s superior approved the request. However, Feng returned the document five times during the period of March 4 to March 19,” Liu said, casting doubt on the reasons behind what he referred to as an unusual move.
Feng said the process to nullify an import permit must be meticulous, but Ko’s document did not explain the matter clearly enough.
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