Saturday 25 February 2012

News Brief: Singapore to lift restrictions on Taiwanese foodstuffs

The Singaporean Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has decided to lift safety measures on certain Taiwanese products and return to normalized trade, the Taipei Representative Office in Singapore announced yesterday, the Taipei Times reports today (full article here).

After the plasticizer food scare in May last year, Singapore enacted measures compelling five major foodstuff imports from Taiwan (sports drinks, juice products, tea products, jams and syrup products, and foodstuffs in the form of capsules, pills or powders) to be labeled with the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ (MOEA) Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection’s special proof of examination.

The plasticizer scare refers to the use of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP, and other -plasticizers, -chemical substances used to increase pliability in plastic materials and which have been found to be endocrine disruptors, in food additives such as clouding agents.

The office said that after assuring the AVA that the plasticizer issue has been taken care of in Taiwan and urging it to consider lifting the extra safety measures on Taiwanese imports, the authority had agreed to a general lift of the measures starting on March 1.


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