China

Food safety in China is undoubtedly an important issue because of the country’s growing emergence on the international economic scene. Some sensational cases (melamine milk and clenobuterol pork being the most notable) reveal, with China being a country that has a strongly export-oriented economy, the transnational dangers to health for consumers who purchase food products originating from China or prepared with the addition of some Chinese ingredients. Currently the national systems for food safety, given the scattering of responsibilities between different agencies, appear disjointed and far from effective. The new food legislation, that envisages the reinforcing of checks, along with the 2006 China-FAO agreement, demonstrates how the authorities in this country are not totally insensitive to the issues of food safety but they are still a long way off from putting in place a system that efficiently and effectively protects the health of individual consumers.