Food groups express unease over safety law proposals
Food groups express unease over safety law proposals
Businesses and food industry experts have voiced concerns over a draft decree regarding the Law on Food Safety, warning that complex and unnecessary changes could squander billions of US dollars annually.
Food groups express unease over safety law proposals |
For a few weeks, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been collecting opinions to refine the draft decree, which amends and supplements several articles of Decree No.15/2018/ND-CP detailing the Law on Food Safety.
The draft immediately became a hot topic, attracting the attention of both international and domestic organisations and the business community in the food industry, as evidenced by the fact that they sent letters to the government and management authorities to clarify pending issues and proposals.
The matter was further discussed at a workshop held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with the MoH’s Vietnam Food Administration on March 5.
There, it was outlined that pending issues and concerns are focused on explanatory documents accompanying declaration and self-declaration dossiers, storage of product information dossier, deadlines for amending or supplementing dossiers, and cases requiring re-registration.
Nguyen Tuan Linh, a representative of the Nutritional Foods Group Sector Committee at the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, said, “The draft still contains numerous bottlenecks, specifically self-declaration procedures, in which Decree 15 stipulates five items, while the draft includes 31 items. Besides that, the draft increases the requirements for registering a declaration form to 34 items, compared to just seven items under the current one. Thus, added procedures will waste tens of millions of US dollars for businesses each year.”
According to a study published by the Central Institute for Economic Management last year, the regulation relating to self-declaration procedures under Decree 15 helped each business save approximately $24,000 per year. With a total of 12,000 businesses in the food industry, this amounts to savings of around $284 million annually.
In addition, manufacturers also save around $5,750 thanks to the reform of registration procedures under Decree 15, equalling $64.8 million per year for 12,000 units.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham) agreed that the number of self-declaration and re-registration dossiers that businesses must submit would increase substantially.
“Although the draft still allows businesses to produce and operate immediately after submitting their self-declaration dossiers, it stipulates that the regulatory agency will publish the dossiers within seven days and, within three months of publication, the agency will review them,” said lawyer Tran Ngoc Han, a representative of AmCham at the workshop. “If any self-declaration is found non-compliant, the state management authority will require the organisation or business to withdraw products.”
Thus, any error could be deemed non-compliant and subject to withdrawal, Han explained. “If a business has already started production and faces a withdrawal, not to mention cases where the regulatory agency’s review concludes incorrectly, it could face bankruptcy risks,” he said.
Consequently, most manufacturers would not dare to produce or operate until the timeline of three months and seven days passed,” said Han. “With a food market valued at $96.5 billion in 2023, where self-declared products account for 90 per cent of goods, such a delay in business operations could result in losses of approximately $23 billion per year for manufacturers.”
Several international and domestic organisations and associations proposed maintaining several provisions of Decree 15 as they are, suggesting a classification of major and minor changes, with only significant and critical changes requiring businesses to re-declare or re-register.
In the petition documents, associations related to food and drink and foreign-invested enterprises share a common assessment that Decree 15 has been an effective reform model in food safety management. It aligns with the risk-based management principles adopted by advanced countries worldwide, helping businesses save millions of working days and tens of millions of dollars on an annual basis.
“The amended decree needs a new approach aligned with international practices and the digitalisation trends of the era, requiring innovation in both organisational structure and management methods, as well as the tools and solutions for implementation,” said Nguyen Van Chinh, executive board member of the Association of Food Transparency.
“Food safety management should adopt a systemic approach, whereby food production and business entities are mandated to apply and be certified as meeting food safety standards,” Chinh continued, adding, “Business information, including production logs, must be updated on the national food safety electronic system. State regulatory agencies should primarily focus their inspections on reviewing and assessing the system, rather than concentrating on product testing. Product testing should only occur when abnormalities are detected on the online system or as part of random and periodic checks.”
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Chu Quoc Thinh, deputy director Vietnam Food Administration To implement the party and government’s policy, the draft decree focuses on three main areas: reforming administrative procedures, decentralising management, and strengthening post-inspection to improve food quality. The draft eliminates the requirement for notarised translations of English legal documents if they have been consular legalised; accepts electronic versions of legal documents; allows the use of test results from production facilities meeting GMP standards; and limits the number of times and deadlines for supplementing product declaration dossiers. Furthermore, it simplifies procedures for importing charitable food aid, removes certain documents from the registration dossier for advertising health protection foods, abolishes the GMP requirement for domestically produced health protection foods, and develops unified management software from central to local levels. Besides that, the new draft also decentralises the issuance of certificates of free sale for exported food products. Regarding the strengthening of post-inspection, there will be stricter control over organisations and individuals declaring products. There will be addition of a product formula explanation section to monitor quality, a requirement to re-declare when significant product elements change, and enhanced quality control of products after declaration. We will continue to collect opinions from international and domestic organisations, associations, business communities, and individuals to refine the draft decree. Chu Thi Van Anh, vice president Vietnam Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Association With Vietnam undergoing significant transformations in the near future, the task of building and amending institutions to meet new requirements is critical. Therefore, the amendment of Decree 15 should focus on the following factors: simplifying administrative procedures, promoting digital transformation in product declaration management, and encouraging the use of IT to enhance transparency and efficiency in the process. Enhancing food safety control through stricter measures to ensure food hygiene and safety, while also supporting enterprises in complying with current regulations, is vital. It is also important to establish an online information portal for consumers to report cases of low-quality products and commercial fraud. We must also ensure the security and safety of user information, ensure prompt and transparent handling of reports, with timely sanctions against violating businesses, and publicise the results of the handling process to build trust with consumers. Fully assessing the impact of any new proposals that may increase the burden of administrative procedures for businesses, posing potential risks that could create new bottlenecks for business operations, is also of crucial importance. In the short term, the issuance of a new decree and the replacement of the old decree will lead to a waste of state resources. Therefore, we recommend considering the revision of Decree 15 at this stage. Pham Thi Ngoc, deputy secretary general Vietnam Dairy Association The government has reaffirmed that the effectiveness and emphasises that reform according to Decree 15 is essential and irreversible. However, through the study of the draft changes, we have identified some content that needs to be reviewed and adjusted. Firstly, the timeframe for drafting ideas is too short at only 10 days, while the topics that need to be researched are numerous. The proposed amendments and additions outlined in the draft are not in line with the common account according to the directives of the General Secretary and the current government. They are also not aligned with the current direction of building food safety laws. Of particular note, many new proposals increase the burden on all three groups of administrative procedures. Furthermore, the draft also includes many unreasonable provisions that are not in line with international standards. These regulations fail to address current issues and risk, creating new problems, seriously affecting the production and business activities of enterprises and the food processing industry. Tran Tuc Ma, general director, Traphaco We see several pending issues in the draft. For example, the draft regulates that in the case of changing or adding a production facility, the manufacturers need to re-conduct a self-declaration of the product. However, we expect that when changing or adding a facility, they only require notification to the Vietnam Food Administration. To ensure production output and product timelines while optimising production costs, changing the manufacturing plant is a practical need for businesses engaged in food production and trading. Moreover, since this pertains to a food product under self-declaration, the facility and the declaring entity should take responsibility for this change. There should not be an additional requirement for businesses to re-declare when altering the facility, as this would reduce administrative burdens for businesses, alleviate pressure on regulatory agencies, and prevent disruptions to production and business operations the new production facility meets the conditions for producing that type of food product as per regulation. Decree 15 already allows a product to be manufactured at multiple facilities, registering an additional production facility after the product has been assigned a number is similar to registering multiple facilities in the initial dossier. Re-declaration leads to several issues, while still permitting multiple production facilities. This incurs significant costs related to packaging changes and impacts the production and trading of existing products. The product’s nature may remain unchanged, but if a business wishes to produce at another plant to expand its market and save on logistics costs, the requirement to re-register creates cumbersome procedures. In addition, if a business outsources functional food production to a facility, this regulation could create difficulties for the outsourcing party, as the contracted facility might increase processing fees due, thereby limiting businesses’ flexibility. Doan Anh Tuan, CEO, New Generation Co., Ltd. We observe that there are still many shortcomings in the draft decree, including detailed regulations on self-declaration and product declaration procedures. Regarding the details of self-declaration/product declaration procedures in the amended draft, we propose to declare groups of similar products instead of declaring them one by one because a business can have hundreds of products. Asking the public about the product formula is also unfeasible because it relates to the confidentiality of a company’s formula and business competition, making it impossible to share such information. The requirement to explain product ingredients is unreasonable, as it is difficult to regulate tea consumption in terms of dosage or benefits when each person’s need is different. This should only apply to products for special dietary regimes. Additionally, the regulation that the regulatory agency publishes dossiers within seven days and reviews them over three months will delay sales, which is inconsistent with the nature of self-declaration. There is an issue that, after self-declaration, businesses can freely advertise their products, but regulatory agencies do not tightly control labelling content or claims about benefits before market entry. For example, some self-declared products may use vague or exaggerated health benefit labels without immediate scrutiny. As a result, consumers are easily misled by inaccurate information, especially in the context of booming e-commerce. Hoang Vinh Long, chairman Vietnam Tea Association The amendment of the decree should focus on addressing the most pressing issues in food safety management in accordance with the government’s directives. Firstly, it needs to specify the implementation of digital transformation in management, especially the procedures for registration and announcement of food products, which must be carried out online. Secondly, enhancing food safety for street food, fresh produce, and communal kitchens is crucial. This group is the main cause of most food poisoning cases today, not packaged foods, which generally pose lower risks. We should encourage post-inspection instead of increasing paperwork, and innovate management methods from product-based licensing to process-based management for clean and safe food. The third point is to shift from pre-inspection to post-inspection based on risk management principles. It is necessary to establish criteria to assess the level of risk based on the nature of goods and the level of legal compliance of businesses, thereby providing a basis for specific and feasible regulations on post-inspection methods, frequency, content of declaration/self-declaration, product quality, and advertising. |
- 15:16 18/03/2025
