EU food safety structure a barrier to trade?

As a result, Brussels has signed off a four-year project aimed at helping Asia, one of the Europe's largest trade partners, to mirror the EU's standards of food quality and meet the demands of the European market. The SELAMAT project (which means safety in Malay) is funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), and aims to create a network for international co-operation on food safety issues between Europe and Asia, writes CORDIS. "The network has identified three research topics linked to ensuring liberal trade: the impact of food on health, the traceability of food along the whole food chain, and methods of detecting contaminants," say the Project partners. If food products can be tested, certified and traced using common methods in both Europe and Asia, then European consumers and regulators will have very few problems with Asian food, they add. Over four years, a series of annual workshops will address trade barrier issues. A final workshop in year four will look into the agenda for joint Asia-Europe research on food safety. Initially three European food research institutes and a Chinese research centre specialising in pesticides will be involved in the project. "Further down the line, it is hoped up to 60 partners could be involved after four years, including core members of relevant FP6 projects," reports CORDIS . The Chinese food industry is growing in leaps and bounds on the back of growing consumer spending and changing eating habits. China food industry sales took off in the mid 1990s rising from under 100 billion yuan (€9.2bn) in 1991 to well over 400 billion yuan (€37bn) just ten years later.

EU food safety structure a barrier to trade?

With food safety a major priority in Europe, some third countries are concerned that issues like organic, dioxin and GM foods could become barriers to trade, according to CORDIS.

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