Beijing will set up a blacklist system for the health foods and cosmetics sectors, whereby those in serious breach of the law will be subject to key monitoring or even ordered to leave the market.
It is learned from the Beijing drug administration bureau that it has been entrusted by the State Food and Drug Administration to start establishing a blacklist system for the health foods and cosmetics sectors. A dedicated working group was set up earlier to collect information and conduct studies on the subject. To date, the group has prepared a budget and drafted an outline work plan and schedule.
Based on the information collected and results of the studies, the Beijing drug administration bureau is inviting experts to hold discussions with production and business enterprises and testing organisations in a bid to gather more comments and suggestions. It will also learn from the experience of other places like Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang in establishing blacklist systems. A plan for its own blacklist system is expected to be drafted by next year.
According to an official of the Beijing drug administration bureau, “safety monitoring of health foods and cosmetics covers all aspects including these products’ declaration, production and sales. Those violating the laws and regulations will be put on the blacklist depending on the seriousness of their breaches.”
Reportedly, China currently does not run a blacklist system targeted at health foods and cosmetics, and the new system is expected to improve the safety risk monitoring of such products. Under the new system, efforts to monitor serious law offenders will be escalated and a mechanism to order them to leave the market will be put in place. Enterprises breaking the laws and losing their credibility will have to bear higher costs, which will facilitate the building of a credibility system for these two sectors.
