The 45th Session of Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) opened in Beijing on May 6, 2013. Vice Minister Yu Xinrong attended and addressed the opening ceremony of the Session, and Chairman of CCPR Dr. Qiao Xiongwu chaired the Session.
Yu noted the great efforts of Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) in protecting consumers'' health and ensuring fair practices in international
food trade. Yu spoke highly of CCPR''s substantial contributions to its member countries, especially in providing guidance, facilitation and coordination to improve their management on agro-product and food safety. Yu pledged that the Chinese Government, as always, will continue its support to CAC, and actively engage in developing a uniformly-defined standard system for international agricultural trade and food safety.
Yu reaffirmed China''s commitment to enhance agro-product quality & safety. "China has achieved remarkable progresses in this regard through introducing evidence-proven and law-based approach, procedure-based management and standardized operation," Yu said.
Yu also highlighted the significant improvement of China''s food safety supervision and regulatory system. "Progress has been seen in standard setting for pesticide residue, veterinary drug residue, food additives and contaminants," he said. "As a result, agricultural operations are more and more standardized."
Yu also pointed out that the Chinese government increased its awareness and reinforced regulatory measures on food quality & safety. "Those measures contributed to China''s 9th consecutive year of
grain growth and sufficient agro-product supply," Yu added. "Food quality & safety is essential for China''s steady and rapid economic growth, and critical for world peace and development."
Organized by
ICAMA, the 45th Session is the 7th meeting hosted by China as the CCPR host government.
The major agenda items includes: Draft maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides in foods and feeds; Use of proportionality to estimate MRLs for pesticides; Revision of MRLs for the commodity groups in pesticide residue database; Revision of the classification of foods and animal feeds; Selection of representative commodities for the extrapolation of MRLs for pesticides to commodity groups; Guidance to the assessment of MRLs for pesticides in minor
crops / specialty crops; Revision of risk analysis principles of CCPR; and Establishment of priority lists for pesticide assessment, etc.
According to head of the Chinese delegation, ICAMA Director-General Sui Pengfei, the National Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for Pesticides in Food (GB2763-2012) came into effect in last March. The standard defined 2293 MRLs for 322 pesticides in 10 major categories of food. It is the only mandatory national standard China applied for pesticide residues in food, as a milestone of China''s progress in harmonizing its national standard-setting with CODEX.
"The Chinese delegation to this Session consists of 23 professionals in a good variety of competent departments including agriculture, public health, food safety, grain, and so forth." Sui introduced.Different from previous sessions, the 45th Session extended invitations to over 50 delegates from pesticide registration trail institutes and pesticide businesses, with an aim to increase their knowledge of international criteria and procedures of setting MRLs for pesticides. It is believed that this act will further facilitate China''s standard setting and production control in the future, and ensure its agro-product and food quality & safety.
Before the opening ceremony, Vice Minister Yu met with CCPR Chairman, and officials of FAO, WHO, CAC and other international organizations.
231 delegates attended the Session, representing 53 countries and regions, and 11 international organizations, inter-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations. (Source: Information Division, ICAMA)