THE Shenzhen Municipal Government announced an initiative Friday to turn the city into a national food safety city, aimed at enhancing food safety status to a satisfactory level for at least 70 percent of residents, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    The city government has 34 food-safety goals for the next two years, according to the report.

    Yue Xin, director of the city’s food and drug administration, said the city government has been putting more emphasis on food safety issues in recent years. In 2014, the government invested 2.58 billion yuan (US$396 million) in a food and drug project, which will take seven years to complete.

    In March 2014 the city’s food safety bureau merged with the drug administration. A market and quality supervision commission was formed a month later.

    “The food and drug supervision system reform and administrative reform make it possible to unify the government’s power to regulate and oversee food from production to distribution and consumption,” he said.

    Yue added that Shenzhen is tackling food safety problems through legal reform.

    According to Yue, over 90 percent of Shenzhen’s food supply comes from non-local sources, while about 80 percent of the food is under government supervision. He said that the non-local food supply could threaten food safety in Shenzhen.

    Yue added that officials will be under social supervision and held responsible for food safety incidents caused by weak management.

    (Zhang Yang)