Members in Shanghai brief visiting EU Commissioner Kyprianou Go back »

2007-08-19 | Shanghai

Members in Shanghai brief visiting EU Commissioner Kyprianou

On September 10th, the Food and Beverage working Group held a briefing for visiting EU Commissioner Markus Kyprianou in Shanghai. Commissioner Kyprianou is responsible for spearheading the EU’s activities in health (including food safety and animal welfare). This is a particularly sensitive issue at the moment and comes at the stage where we have, in recent times, seen a number of scandals and ‘stand-offs’ between China and other countries in the area of food safety. Therefore it was particularly timely that the Commissioner had the opportunity to be briefed directly by member companies in this industry in China.

The Chamber group was led by board member Richard Zhang and acting F&B Working Group Chairman, Robin Saby and included seven European companies representing retailers, distributors, producers, importers and caterers of food products in China.

The message of the meeting was that the EU needs to be tougher on ensuring that standards are met. Chinese companies should do more than just meet the basic requirements for export to Europe, becoming more quality focused than simply profit focused. Member companies expressed their clear dissatisfaction at the way regulations are inconsistently implemented across the country and how foreign companies are consistently targeted as to ‘catch a foreign company in the act’ would give significant kudos a local government official, leading to some companies getting visit after visit from officials. This overlooks the smaller local companies who are often the companies in more serious and consistent breaches of the regulations.

European companies accept that they have a responsibility to lead the way in food safety and are happy to do so, but want a corresponding effort from local authorities to fairly and consistently implement existing regulations.

The Commissioner was happy to receive the first hand information and ensured members that their interests will be properly represented at the top level ministerial meetings that will be held over the coming days.