Singapore is to allow imports of Taiwanese raw pork for the first time in 15 years, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.
The Singapore Food Agency has approved imports of fresh pork produced by New Taipei City-based Cha I Shan Foods, which had obtained a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from the ministry to export to Singapore, it said.
The ministry said it had hoped Singapore would permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports in addition to processed pork products.
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Singapore agreed to accept Taiwanese fresh pork after completing a document review and a virtual tour of Cha I Shan Foods’ packing plant in a boost to international recognition for the nation’s sanitation standards for pork, the ministry said.
The achievement would not have been possible without advances in animal disease prevention and the meat packing industry’s adoption of the HACCP system, it said.
Taiwan is negotiating with Singapore to certify other pork producers in the nation, the ministry said.
Singapore is the second country to permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports after the Philippines.
The government has upgraded the meat packing industry and its cold chains to meet international standards, the ministry said.
Eleven pork and 17 poultry packing plants have achieved HACCP certification since the ministry rolled out the standard in late 2020, it added.
Taiwan continues to take measures against diseases affecting pig farms, including preventing African swine fever from entering the nation, and eliminating foot-and-mouth disease and ordinary swine fever, it said.
The WHO has certified Taiwan to be free of foot-and-mouth disease and the ministry is working toward obtaining swine fever-free status, which is expected in May next year, it said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
RSS