Hong Kong's Permanent Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Carrie Yau has visited the European Food Safety Authority in Parma, Italy, to keep abreast of the latest European developments and maintain Hong Kong's liaison with overseas food safety organizations.

"Food safety concerns have dominated the agenda of the global community as the community worldwide becomes more health conscious. Consumers can now grasp the latest situation on food contamination incidents via the internet and electronic media," Yau said.

Joined by the Consultant of Centre for Food Safety, Dr Ho Yuk-yin, Yau met officials of the authority to learn more about how it carries out its work in risk assessment and risk communication, as well as its work in providing scientific advice on food standard setting and nutrition claims. As a decentralized agency of European Union, the authority provides the European Commission with independent scientific advice on all matters with a direct or indirect impact on food safety.

"Hong Kong needs to update the regulatory regime from time to time since we import more than 90% of food from all over the world. Over-regulation may drive food products away from the shelf, suppress supply and drive prices up unnecessarily. We must strike a balance between safe, steady and varied supply of foodstuff. Only in this manner can we maintain Hong Kong's brand name as a gourmet and shopper paradise with offer of the widest possible range of both common and niche food products to our consumers," Yau said.

Yau was told by agency officials that in European Union countries, including the United Kingdom, nutrition information on food labels remained voluntary except for food that carried claims, namely, pre-packaged food that advertise contents such as "low fat " or "sugar free". The EU countries are working towards requiring mandatory labeling for certain core nutrients on all food but there was no definite timing.

Yau noted that if there was discrepancy in food labeling requirements between Hong Kong and other places where food was imported from, it may affect the stability and choices of food supply in Hong Kong.