VietNamNet
Bridge – The loosened management and
unreasonable sanctions have created the loopholes for Chinese low-quality goods
to slip into the Vietnamese market.
According
to the HCM City Customs Agency, Chinese food (fruit jam, processed fruits) has
not been going through the city’s ports to penetrate the domestic market. The
majority of the goods have been carried to HCM City through the border gates in
the north, which makes it very difficult to control the imports.
The control which was thought as strict,
turns out to be loose
Though
the information about Chinese dirty foods has appeared on all local newspapers,
the food products still have been available on the market, simply because
Vietnamese merchants like selling Chinese goods.
“We
have been offered Chinese food at the prices lower by 20-30 percent than
domestic products. We just need to place orders and wait. Goods will be
delivered just after some days,” said Tran Minh Thi, the owner of a sweets
trading company in HCM City.
Huynh
Le Thai Hoa, Head of the HCM City Food Safety and Hygiene Agency, said his
agency now gathers strength on examining the quality of Chinese candy products,
especially the cigarette-shape candy, believed to badly influence children.
After that, inspectors would return to take samples of other products for
testing.
Meanwhile,
Dang Van Duc, Head of the HCM City Market Control Sub-department, has affirmed
that his staff keeps regularly examining the food available on the market.
However,
Chinese products still have been flooding the domestic market. Where is the problem?
In
fact, the Chinese foods displayed on the market are not prohibited goods.
Though the products available are not put in packs and do not have labels,
sellers always can show invoices and sub-labels stuck to main packs. Therefore,
the market control taskforce cannot punish sellers.
Meanwhile,
the quality of the products can be verified only by healthcare agencies. The
market control taskforce would only be able to deal with the cases when the
agencies make conclusion after testing the product samples that the products’
quality is not safe to people’s health.
Meanwhile,
healthcare agencies believe that controlling the goods on the market must be
the duty of the market control department, while healthcare agencies should be
responsible only for supervising the quality. Their statements about the
quality of products could serve as reference, while they do not have the power
to punish the violators.
Four ministries keep control over the same
subjects
The
rapid fire information about the flooding of Chinese dirty foods on the
domestic market has raised the anger among people, who have heavily criticized
relevant agencies for this. Though imports have to go through a lot of state
management agencies’ doors before entering the domestic market, Vietnamese
consumers still have to buy dirty foods.
Vegetables,
meat and fish are now put under the control of four powerful ministries. The
Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and Science and
Technology (MST) are in charge of controlling food during the production or
import. The Ministry of Industry and Trade takes responsibility for the quality
of the food in circulation on the market. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health is
responsible for healthcare service quality.
However,
to date, consumers still have not got satisfactory answers to the question of
why dirty foods still exists.
A
healthcare officer said that toxic products still have been on sale, because
merchants, who can make fat profits from trading dirty food, would accept to
pay fines, just several millions of dong, and continue distributing Chinese
goods. He said the light punishment cannot make Vietnamese merchants keep away
from Chinese dirty products.
Phuoc
Ha
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