The panel discussion of the Eleventh Standing Committee of the 11th Fujian Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) opened on Jan 27, in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province.

Zhang Lan, head of the testing center of Fuzhou University and a member of the CPPCC Fujian committee, proposed that third-party testing organizations can play a bigger role in food security monitoring.

Zhang pointed out that food safety problems, which mainly involve food contamination, food toxicity and food additives, can only be prevented by scientific methods.

Zhang said that currently the inspection of food safety has many flaws such as lack of unified food safety testing standards and insufficient qualified inspectors or equipment.

She further stressed that the third-party testing organizations should work with food safety inspection authorities to better protect food safety and deal with food safety problems.

It is necessary to establish a healthy mechanism to manage the third-party testing organizations so as to avoid fraud or chaos in the process of food safety testing, she said.

Zhang suggested improving laws and regulations on the management of third party testing organizations, “a well-designed credit appraisal system, an early-warning risk and inspection system should be established to make sure the fairness and transparency of the testing results.”

According to Zhang, the government should delegate its power and incorporate food safety testing into the government procurement system.

Zhang said that the third-party food safety testing organizations should be undertaken by those qualified and reputable social organizations.

Furthermore, authorities of the government and third-party food safety testing organizations should be separated such that the government is responsible for the release of regulations, the industrial associations give further explanation of the regulations, and the third-party organizations give final implementation of the testing.

The customers will also act as an inspection group benefiting the healthy and orderly development of food safety testing, Zhang added.