Hong Kong has strictly checked vegetable pesticide residues in
accordance with international standards, the food safety
authorities said Monday, pledging zero tolerance to those violating
related rules.
The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
(HKSAR) has run an efficient checking system on vegetable pesticide
residues, though there's difficulty in tracing vegetable sources of
the retailing points, Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene
Leung Wing-lup said on Monday.
Leung's remarks came after environmental groups' report that
vegetables sold at Hong Kong's major supermarket chains have a
harmful amount of pesticide residues.
In response, the HKSAR government has required the major
supermarket chains to set up a better vegetable source tracing
system, said Leung.
With a daily import of 1,700 tones of vegetables, the HKSAR Food
and Environmental Department conducted 20,000 sample checks in last
year, with one fourth of the samples taken from markets and
supermarkets.
The authorities in Hong Kong have established contacts with
their counterpart in the mainland, which can easily track down
exporters selling vegetables with high pesticide residues.
Leung defended the system saying that the present sampling ratio
is appropriate taking into account risk assessment and resources
deployment.
Besides, the city's Vegetable Marketing Organization also
conducted its own tests on vegetables from local farms, with 9,000
samples tested in the past six months.
(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2006)