Dr. Tran Viet Nga - Director of the Department of Food Safety (Ministry of Health) - admitted: The management of fake food and counterfeit goods is currently facing many difficulties, partly due to inadequacies in the management mechanism. Decree 15/2018/ND-CP of the Government allows businesses to announce their own products and take responsibility for quality and safety. However, some businesses have taken advantage of this open policy to do illegal business.
According to current regulations, businesses can self-declare and produce products without having to have their documents appraised by a state management agency. The procedure is simple, without fees, leading to a huge announcement of products, while the actual output may not be in accordance with the submitted documents. Some businesses take advantage of this mechanism to bring to the market medical nutritional products and foods for special diets that are actually dietary supplements, causing confusion and violating regulations. This is an act of circumventing the law that needs to be strictly handled.
A representative of the Food Safety Department said that when giving businesses the right to self-declare, they need to strictly comply with issued legal documents, such as the Food Safety Law, Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, technical regulations, Decree 98/2020/ND-CP on penalties for counterfeit goods, and even the Penal Code. However, many businesses still deliberately violate for profit, despite business ethics.
On the part of the authorities, management work is facing difficulties due to the large number of announced products. Any business with a business registration has the right to announce food products. Meanwhile, the post-inspection force is still limited and has not met the monitoring requirements. Post-inspection includes many steps such as checking records, checking production facilities, taking product samples for testing... but the cost of testing is very high, causing great pressure on localities.
To overcome this situation, the Government is amending the Law on Food Safety. The Food Safety Department has advised the Ministry of Health to propose amending Decree 15/2018/ND-CP and related documents, in the direction of tightening self-publication. At the same time, it recommended that the People's Committees of provinces and cities increase investment in human resources and funding for post-inspection work.
Dr. Tran Viet Nga emphasized: To make people have safe access to products, there needs to be synchronous coordination from many sides. First of all, businesses must put business ethics first and strictly comply with legal regulations".
She also said that management agencies need to continue to improve the legal framework, improve the capacity to control products in circulation, strengthen inspection, examination and strictly punish violations.
In addition, consumers also need to proactively equip themselves with knowledge to choose safe products. Learning about the origin, ingredients, labels and updating information from authorities is necessary to protect the health of yourself and your family.
