Starting next year, Japanese companies intending to import teas, candies or cookies may have to submit a radiation detection report issued by a local authority, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday.
“The administration on Tuesday published a draft regulation requiring importers of tea products, snacks, cookies and grain beverages to provide not only a country of origin certificate, but also a radiation assessment report issued by the Japanese government,” agency interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said.
Chiang said public opinion on the proposal will be sought over the next 60 days and the measure is expected to be implemented early next year if no objections are raised.
At present, only vegetable, fruit, aquatic products, baby formula, dairy products and water imported from Japan require a radiation detection report, with the exception of all food products from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures, which have been banned since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
Chiang’s announcement came one day after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) raised questions on Facebook about the FDA’s regulations on Japanese food imports since the disaster.
Lin wrote that she had taken members of a non-governmental organization to inspect the agency’s border examinations and Keelung Customs last month.
“I learned two things from the trip. Even though the government has suspended food product imports from the five Japanese prefectures, it believes whatever importers put in the ‘place of origin’ column,” Lin said.
Second, although in theory eight types of foodstuffs from Japan are subjected to batch-by-batch inspections, the FDA only conducts examinations on a small portion of each batch of imports, Lin said.
“In reality, it is more of a batch-by-batch random examination,” she said.
Lin also questioned Uni-President Group’s decision to start selling a wide range of Japanese tea products in the past three years.
“Do you know that following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the amount of Japanese tea leaves imported to Taiwan has greatly increased, not decreased?” Lin said.
Uni-President is the nation’s largest food conglomerate. It has also been caught up in the latest tainted oil scandal.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we