Starting next year, Japanese companies intending to import teas, candies or cookies may have to submit a radiation detection report issued by a local authority, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday.
“The administration on Tuesday published a draft regulation requiring importers of tea products, snacks, cookies and grain beverages to provide not only a country of origin certificate, but also a radiation assessment report issued by the Japanese government,” agency interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said.
[…]
Chiang’s announcement came one day after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) raised questions on Facebook about the FDA’s regulations on Japanese food imports since the disaster.
Lin wrote that she had taken members of a non-governmental organization to inspect the agency’s border examinations and Keelung Customs last month.
“I learned two things from the trip. Even though the government has suspended food product imports from the five Japanese prefectures, it believes whatever importers put in the ‘place of origin’ column,” Lin said.[…]
“Do you know that following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the amount of Japanese tea leaves imported to Taiwan has greatly increased, not decreased?” Lin said.
Uni-President is the nation’s largest food conglomerate. It has also been caught up in the latest tainted oil scandal.
Read more.
