Source:  China Daily, Oct 26,2020

China has redoubled its efforts to bring safe and healthy food to dining tables across the country amid the global COVID-19 outbreak. To that end, the country has been rolling out measures to improve supervision of imported and home-produced food.

As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, cluster outbreaks have been reported in a number of food-processing enterprises overseas, bringing cold chain products under close scrutiny by Chinese authorities.
In a move to prevent possible virus transmission via imported food, China Customs authority in July halted imports from three shrimp producers in Ecuador. The authority ordered frozen products from the companies to be returned or destroyed after samples from the inner wall of a container and the products' outer packaging tested positive for the virus.
Though the test results didn't mean the virus could infect people via food, they exposed loopholes in the companies' food safety regulations, said Bi Kexin, head of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau at the General Administration of Customs (GACC).
Regarding food safety as an important task for the country and authorities at all levels, the government has called for the strongest measures, the most rigorous standards, the strictest supervision, the severest punishments for violators and the most effective system of accountability. As a result, China has been stepping up efforts to keep a close eye on imported food and food-related industries at home.

Inspections intensified
To cut off overseas virus transmission channels, China has intensified inspection and testing of imported food in the cold chain.
As of Sept 15, the General Administration of Customs had suspended imports from 56 cold-chain food companies overseas.
Mechanisms to facilitate coordination and information sharing have also been put in place, while food retailers have been ordered to take steps as soon as a problem is spotted.
Despite stricter food supervision and inspection, China will remain committed to expanding imports, and promoting agricultural trade has always been an integral part of the country's opening-up policy.
Official data show that food and agricultural imports have grown rapidly this year, despite disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the January to May period, imports of agricultural products rose 9 percent year-on-year, 17 percentage points higher than the country's total imports during the same period.

Reducing risks
As food safety supervision concerns every member of China's population of 1.4 billion and people's health and lives, authorities at all levels have prioritized food safety in public health and are urging greater efforts to reduce all risks.
In response to COVID-19, the country has banned the illegal trade in wildlife and the consumption of such animals, and has tightened supervision of the food industry, covering employees, the environment and logistics. In July, authorities announced the gradual closure of all live poultry markets.
Cold chain food logistics have also come under the spotlight. To regulate the sector, China has implemented national regulating requirements for all links in cold-chain food, including production, processing, transportation and sales.
While employing the toughest measures to prevent food safety issues at source, supervise all links and control risks, China pledged to establish a more unified, authoritative supervision system.