The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday announced its initial findings in the ongoing milk powder scare, saying that only one of the 22 Chinese companies suspected of selling contaminated food products had exported goods to Taiwan.
On Tuesday, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine reported that a total of 69 products made by 22 companies, including Sanlu, were contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.
Hsiao Tung-ming (蕭東銘), acting director of the DOH’s Bureau of Safety, said yesterday that only Sanlu products had been imported.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
After a cross-departmental meeting at the Executive Yuan, Hsiao said: “The government has prohibited all imports of dairy products from the 22 companies in China.”
Hsiao was referring to a provisional meeting of Cabinet officials called by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) at 9am yesterday morning.
During the meeting, the Cabinet banned the 22 baby milk powder brands from entering Taiwan and demanded that all Chinese dairy products be removed from the market, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) said.
“The ban prohibiting businesses from putting Chinese dairy products on the market won’t be lifted until importers of the products provide food safety certificates for the products,” Shih said.
Shih also said Liu had told Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) to prioritize establishing a stricter monitoring system to check the safety of Chinese products during the next round of cross-strait negotiations.
Deputy Health Minister Sung Yen-jen (宋晏仁) said yesterday that 17 companies in Taiwan had imported dairy products from China. The DOH has prohibited sales of these products by all Taiwanese retailers until the companies in question provide documents certifying their products are safe, he said.
“We basically believe that [the products] are not a problem,” Sung said, adding that this measure was just to be on the safe side.
The 17 companies must have their products inspected by the Food Industry Research and Development Institute and obtain documents certifying their safety.
The list of the 17 questionable companies included Nestle, but it was taken off the list when institute findings were reviewed by the DOH yesterday afternoon.
The DOH said it had taken legal action against two companies that refused to cooperate with investigations. Taiway Technology Co still had 221 unaccounted containers of milk powder products, while Wabake had 64.
“Their numbers just don’t match up,” said Hsiao, adding that the DOH had asked the Bureau of Investigation for assistance in this matter.
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) yesterday said it issued a letter to its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, asking it to find out if the milk products sold to Taiwan by several Chinese firms between January and July were contaminated with melamine.
The SEF said it hoped ARATS would help uncover the details of the matter.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING AND SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS