The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday released 31 registration forms and inventory lists Beijing requires Taiwanese exporters to fill out before they can send their products to China, showing that some of them have to disclose the proportions of ingredients used in their products, as well as the cooking time and temperature.
China last week unilaterally suspended imports of many Taiwanese products, including seafood, alcohol and other beverages, affecting 2,409 companies.
The Chinese General Administration of Customs said the companies had submitted incomplete registration information.
Photo copied by Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Over the past few days, Chinese-language media have reported that several Taiwanese companies are not planning to submit additional documents to resume exports to China, and would instead seek to sell their products in other countries, as the Chinese forms require them to reveal trade secrets.
Among the banned food companies, a Taipei-based producer of pineapple cakes was reported as having given up on submitting additional data required by China. The report cited the company’s owner as saying that she did not want to reveal the proportions of ingredients used, the layout of her factory and other information.
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus and some Chinese-language media have criticized the Council of Agriculture and the FDA, saying they had failed to help the companies complete the registrations and questioning whether the information required in the forms really amount to trade secrets.
Photo copied by Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
FDA Director-General Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅) on Tuesday evening said it is reasonable for a customs agency to ask importers to disclose the ingredients of food products, but the Chinese government goes beyond what is reasonable.
She said Beijing informed the FDA on March 9 that it would require firms to fill out the new registration forms, with the information required depending on what type of products they seek to import.
The FDA respects the companies’ decisions on whether they want to disclose the required information, she said, adding that the decisions involve commercial considerations.
The forms require certain food companies to disclose the proportions of ingredients, as well as processing methods, factory layout and workshop floor plans, as well as other information, the FDA said.
Beijing unilaterally decided to ask companies to use the new forms, requiring them to disclose information “in written form,” which means on paper, the FDA said.
Beijing uploaded the forms to its online food export integration platform on March 18, it added.
Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said companies based in other countries can submit the information online.
For them, the “ingredient proportion” field is optional, while the paper forms that Taiwanese firms must use does not mark any fields as optional, Hsueh said.
The FDA said that regardless of whether a Taiwanese producer independently seeks to export goods to China or another company is involved, the forms are the same.
The Chinese customs agency helps companies complete the forms, it added.
As of yesterday, 31 products under “recommended registration” and 824 products under “self-registration” had been approved by Beijing, the FDA said.
Additional reporting by CNA
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
ENHANCED SECURITY: A Japanese report said that the MOU is about the sharing of information on foreign nationals entering Japan from Taiwan in the event of an emergency The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that Taiwan and Japan had signed an agreement to promote information exchanges and cooperation on border management, although it did not disclose more details on the pact. Ministry spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said the ministry is happy to see that the two nations continue to enhance cooperation on immigration control, in particular because Taiwan and Japan “share a deep friendship and frequent people-to-people exchanges.” “Last year, more than 7.32 million visits were made between the two countries, making it even more crucial for both sides to work closer on immigration and border control,” he said. Hsiao
RSS