October 23, 2007

China's Liaoning to enhance aqua food safety for export products

The Entry-exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau of China's Liaoning province has recently signed a cooperation agreement with the province's Department of Ocean and Fisheries to step up efforts to enhance food safety systems for aquaculture and seafood products.

The agreement will pave the way for these two provincial departments to develop information sharing systems and collaborate more closely on aqua and seafood safety issues.

Given the flurry of bad press that some of China's food and consumer products have received since the beginning of this year, market participants said that this cooperation agreement between the two government departments is timely.

Presently, there are 350 aquaculture and seafood processing companies in Liaoning. Of these, some 140 companies are licenced aquaculture product and seafood exporters.

For the first nine months of 2007, the province exported US$980 million worth of seafood and aquaculture products, an increase of 17.7 percent compared with the year-ago period.

RMB1=US$0.1332 (Oct 23)