Assurng food safety and quality in Europe.docVIP

Assuring food safety and quality in Europe - past, present and future : the parallel between EU and China . ? High level officials from the Chinese authorities and from other countries, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and gentlemen, Da Jia Hao! ? It is an honour and a great pleasure for me to be here today to deliver a keynote speech on behalf of the European Union at the occasion of my first visit to China as the EU Commissioner responsible for Health and Food Safety. I want to begin by thanking our Chinese colleagues and the conference organizers for inviting me to this important food safety conference. I have now been in office for exactly one year, and I felt it was the good moment to visit China, which is the second biggest partner for food trade for the EU. Food safety is a global concern that has been among the top priorities of governments around the world. And the same goes for the EU. So it is not a coincidence that food safety is – for the first time – explicitly mentioned in the official title of an EU Commissioner. As you are aware, China recently adopted the New (13th) Five Years Plan, which makes emphasis on issues like?food security and food safety, environment, innovation, going global, improvements of the social welfare and other spheres, where I see increasing possibilities for cooperation and for European businesses to benefit from increased trade and investment ties. This is a clear sign that there is a will to move from quantity to increased quality. Food safety is also part of Sustainable Development Goals defined by United Nations. Without Food safety these goals cannot be achieved.? This year food safety was also the topic of Word Exibition which took place in Milan, Italy where I had the chance to address several international conferences. The title of the Expo was ‘Feeding the planet’. We had very interesting discussions on food safety, security and also waste which is increasing issue. So you see – this is a very topical issue. It is actu