Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ15: Safety of edible oil

Following is a question by the Dr Hon Helena Wong Pik-wan and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today (November 5):

Question:

On the 15th of last month, the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) under the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) announced that having assessed the latest developments of investigations into the incident of substandard edible oil by the Taiwanese authorities, it had decided to impose, with immediate effect, a total ban on import and sale within Hong Kong of all edible oil produced in Taiwan. In addition, there was information showing that a trading company in Hong Kong had, in recent years, exported edible lard to several Taiwanese companies involved in the production of substandard lard. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(1) as it has been reported that according to the export statistics, Hong Kong exported edible lard in each of the past three years, but the Director of FEHD advised that no edible lard was produced in Hong Kong, whether the authorities have followed up the reasons why there had been exports of edible lard;

(2) of the total number of companies in Hong Kong which exported edible lard in the past three years and the countries/places to which the edible lard was exported;

(3) whether it has investigated if the companies mentioned in (2) have provided edible lard to local food factories as raw materials; if it has investigated and the outcome is in the affirmative, of the names of these factories; and

(4) whether it has investigated if the edible lard sold by the companies mentioned in (2) is fit for human consumption, as well as the places of origin and the names of the manufacturers of such lard; if it has investigated, of the outcome; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

President,

Any premises manufacturing edible lard for human consumption in Hong Kong must have a food factory licence issued by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) under the Food Business Regulation (Cap. 132X). If the manufacturing process involves the boiling of lard, the premises should also obtain an offensive trade licence issued by FEHD under the Offensive Trades Regulation (Cap. 132AX). According to the records of FEHD, there are currently nine licensed food factories which are allowed to process or manufacture edible oil, but not edible lard. As such, no licensed premises in Hong Kong are allowed to engage in the business of manufacturing edible lard. However, according to the domestic export declaration records, there has been domestic export of edible lard, giving rise to concern about whether edible lard is being illegally produced for domestic export by unruly manufacturers.

In this connection, the Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) has checked carefully the domestic export declaration records under the Hong Kong Harmonised System (HKHS)(Note 1) code 1501 1000 (Note 2) from January 2013 to July 2014 and found out that the declaration involved four exporters. Except for Globalway Corporation Limited which is still under Police investigation for allegation of fraud, C&ED has come into contact with the other three exporters and checked their records on the import and export of the relevant products.

It was found that the three exporters had made errors in their trade declaration. For one of the exporters, the commodity concerned had been correctly declared as lard not for human consumption on the export declaration but the HKHS code had been incorrectly declared. For the other two exporters, the edible lard not manufactured in Hong Kong had been incorrectly declared as domestic exports instead of re-exports. C&ED had already reminded the three exporters of the correct method of lodging trade declarations. In response to public concern about the incident, the Administration will step up monitoring with a view to further enhancing the declarants' understanding of the relevant commodity code classification.

The investigation results of C&ED have revealed that the existence of records of domestic exports of edible lard, as mentioned in the first paragraph above, is the result of incorrect declaration by the relevant exporters. There is no evidence that any of these exporters has manufactured edible lard in Hong Kong for domestic exports or for the use of local food factories as an ingredient.

As it has taken significant time and resources for C&ED to check the relevant records of export declarations and carry out follow-up investigation, we have only in hand the information for 2013 and the period from January to July 2014.

On the other hand, the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of FEHD has all along been monitoring the quality of local edible oil through the risk-based regular Food Surveillance Programme to ensure that the oil meets the legal requirements and is fit for human consumption. In 2013, CFS took some 450 edible oil samples at different levels for testing of chemicals including benzo[a]pyrene, aflatoxins, peroxide value and metal contaminants. All results were found to be satisfactory.

In response to the substandard lard incident in Taiwan, CFS took some 210 samples of high-risk and possibly contaminated food products and lard for testing. Except for one lard sample the peroxide value of which exceeded the relevant limit, all samples passed the tests. The risk assessment conducted by CFS with reference to the test results showed that while the consumption of the food concerned might increase food safety risk, the risk was considered to be not high and there was no cause for undue concern.

Considering public concern over the safety of edible oil, CFS will step up the testing of edible oil from other places in the coming year. It is expected that the number of samples to be collected for testing will increase by at least 20 per cent over last year.

(Note 1) HKHS is a classification list which adopts the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System designed by the World Customs Organization. The classification list, issued by the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, is used for import and export declarations and amendments to the list where necessary is announced in the Government Gazette.

(Note 2) HKHS code 1501 1000 refers to lard, other than that under heading 0209 (pig fat, free of lean meat, and poultry fat, not rendered or otherwise extracted, fresh, chilled, frozen, salted, in brine, dried or smoked) or heading 1503 (lard stearin, lard oil, oleostearin, oleo-oil and tallow oil, not emulsified or mixed or otherwise prepared).

Ends/Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Issued at HKT 15:21

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