Addressing a meeting on Wednesday, Da Nang Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Xuan Anh underlined the significance of ensuring food safety and hygiene to ensure the health of both locals and visitors, and he added that he considers this to be one of this year’s priorities.

Secretary Anh (centre) addressing the meeting

Secretary Anh asked the municipal authorities to make suggestions to the city leaders about establishing a special agency exclusively for managing all local issues relating to food safety and hygiene. 

He also suggested that part of the funding from the city budget for the deployment of local construction projects should be spent on practical programmes ensuring food safety and hygiene as needed.

He also urged relevant local agencies to promote their checks and monitoring of local food providers and traders, and to impose heavier penalties for violating the city’s regulations about food safety and hygiene.   Meanwhile, even more effective measures should be taken to ban counterfeit, poor-quality, and hazardous goods from being sold in the city.

In particular, the names of violators will be widely displayed in the local mass media, whilst local organisations and individuals will be honoured and rewarded for their active involvement in ensuring food safety and hygiene. 

Secretary Anh underlined the need to identify the specific responsibilities of relevant local agencies as well as of the leaders of the People’s Committees (PCs) at district and ward levels in handling matters relating to food safety and hygiene.  If a district or ward sees slow improvements in this aspect, the leaders of their authorities will be replaced.

Also at the meeting, Secretary Anh highlighted the necessity to control food supply chains for local residents from now until the forthcoming Tet Festival. 

According to a report released by the municipal PC, over 1.2 billion VND from the city budget will be spent this year on taking food samples and testing them for the presence of prohibited substances.  This will be double the amount spent on this last year.

During 2016, 916 local providers and traders were fined over 2.5 billion VND in total for violating the city’s food safety and hygiene regulations.