China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce has released a new rule to tighten up the supervision of advertisements of food products.
According to the new rule which is called the Food Advertisement Supervision Rule, China will severely punish publishers of misleading food advertisements: focusing on advertisements that lie about, or overstate the performance, of a particular food product, especially healthcare food products; advertisements related to disease control and prevention; advertisements released without approval; advertisements linking food products to the name of a government employee, a medical institution, or a doctor, or that use the image of experts or consumers to verify the effectiveness of a food product; advertisements released in the form of news reports or health information releases; and advertisements that imply that a food product has been recommended by person in authority.
The new rule requires that the media to be held responsible for the monitoring of food product advertisements and a monitor system will be set up to implement the dynamic supervision of food product advertisements. In addition, the industrial and commercial department will enhance its efforts in publicizing illegal food advertisements and remind consumers about these misleading advertisement.
Finally, the rule says that publishers of advertisements will be asked to suspend advertisement publishing or even have their license to release advertisements revoked once their advertisements are found illegal. Also, a food product advertisement may be suspended is an investigation on the product is required.
