Thousands of companies fined for food safety violations in Vietnam

Jun 10, 2009, 7:52 GMT

   Hanoi - The authorities in Vietnam have fined 5,000 companies for violating food safety regulations, state media reported Wednesday.

   Inspections of 20,000 companies from April 15 to May 15 revealed 5,000 of them breaking rules on food safety and hygiene, the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted sources from the Ministry of Trade and Industry as saying.

   The companies were fined a total of 1.8 billion dong (105,000 dollars) and 89 products were destroyed, the newspaper said.

   Many Vietnamese companies are small, so their compliance with food safety and hygiene is very limited compared to bigger enterprises that have better facilities, said Nguyen Cong Khan, head of the Food Safety and Hygiene Department of the Health Ministry.

   'The most common violations are contaminated work areas,' Khan said. 'There are also discrepancies between the actual quality of the product and the quality registered with the authorities, as well as the incorrect use of trademarks.'

   Quality standards for foodstuffs are different for domestic consumption and export.

   Khan said his department was tightening inspections so common standards could eventually be applied to products on both the domestic and foreign markets.

   'It is unfair to apply two different standards for one product,' Khan said.

   In the first quarter of this year, the country reported 186 cases of food poisoning, including two fatalities, according to the Food Safety and Hygiene Department.

   It is a dramatic improvement from last year, which saw nearly 8,000 cases of food poisoning with 61 deaths.