On April 16, a working delegation of the Ministry of Health led by Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan had a working session, supervising and evaluating the food safety management model of Ho Chi Minh City.
At the working session, Ms. Pham Khanh Phong Lan - Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety - said that Ho Chi Minh City is a major economic and social center with a very large food demand, serving about 14 million people.
Currently, Ho Chi Minh City manages more than 30,000 food production and business establishments. Meanwhile, the management force is still thin, leading to overload in task implementation.
The characteristics of a large urban area with many types of activities such as industrial parks, services and school systems also increase the risk of food insecurity. After expanding the area, Ho Chi Minh City currently has about 3,500 schools with many diverse kitchen models and food supply.
Regarding the organizational model, Ms. Lan said that the Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Management Board was established in 2017 and transformed into the Department of Food Safety from January 1, 2024. The city expects the Department model to help increase proactiveness and remove obstacles in the process of performing tasks.
From the beginning, the Department identified 4 key task groups including building clean food, combating dirty food, administrative reform and raising community awareness.
Speaking at the working session, Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong - Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee - said that in the practical process of implementing activities, from the pilot phase to the implementation process to this point, the Food Safety Board before and now the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety is also an agency that both does, learns from experience, and perfects the model, and supplements from practice to be able to organize implementation. Up to this point, the city can affirm that this model is very necessary.
The city also proposed that, in the context of obstacles and difficulties in the process of perfecting the legal institution in the near future, the operating model of the food safety agency should be linked to the functions and tasks of the 2-level government.
Concluding the working session, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan assessed that the field of food safety is a difficult, sensitive field with a very broad management scope.
The Minister cited an example, medicine is only used by patients, while food is an essential need of all people. Ho Chi Minh City alone currently has about 30,000 establishments under management, while the specialized force is only more than 400 people.
The Minister of Health acknowledged the recommendations of Ho Chi Minh City, and at the same time, continued to study international experiences to improve the food safety management model in the direction of unifying a single focal point from central to local levels.
