Regulations of the Food Safety Department cause trouble for businesses

The Transparent Food Association said that many regulations of the Food Safety Department (Ministry of Health) are causing trouble for businesses.

At the working session between the Government's Working Group and the Ministry of Health on the issue of pre-inspection of import and export goods held yesterday (September 20), the Transparent Food Association said that many regulations of the Food Safety Department (Ministry of Health) are causing trouble for businesses.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Minh - Transparent Food Association

According to many businesses, instead of strengthening post-inspection of imported goods as directed by the Government, the Food Safety Department (Ministry of Health) is currently conducting pre-inspection of too many goods. There are products of world-famous brands, with international certification, but when imported to Vietnam, the Food Safety Department still requires inspection of conformity certification. Or there are products with organic certification, but the Department still requires inspection of heavy metal content.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Minh, former Deputy Minister of Fisheries, representative of the Transparent Food Association, said: Procedures through the Ministry of Health must go through service companies to shorten the time. Implementing the one-stop mechanism, businesses must register import documents with the Food Safety Department via the internet.

However, according to Ms. Minh, this usually takes 40 to 45 days to get results, even longer or no response. Many businesses have to pay through brokerage services with costs ranging from 5 to 10 million VND and only about 5 days to get results.

In response to the opinion that the Food Safety Department does not have enough human resources to conduct post-inspection, the Transparency Food Association suggested that it is necessary to socialize the inspection of imported goods quality. Currently, there are many qualified laboratories that can take samples as designated by the Food Safety Department to check product quality./.

According to VOV