Food inspectors check food products at a market in Hà Nội. — Photo chinhphu.vn |
HÀ NỘI — Hà Nội has launched hotlines to receive complaints on food safety and hygiene violations.
The hotlines numbers are 190.058.5826, 043.38.0115 and 043.998.5765 and have been set up by the municipal departments of trade and industry, agriculture and rural development, and health, respectively.
The move is expected to help local authorities tighten control over food safety and hygiene more effectively with unsafe food becoming a substantial threat.
In another move, the Hà Nội authorities decided to publicise names of businesses violating food safety and hygiene violations, particularly shops and stores selling products without clear origins.
According to the deputy director of the municipal Health Department, Hoàng Đức Hạnh, Hà Nội has more than 59,100 businesses operating in food production, trade and processing, six industrial livestock and poultry slaughterhouses, nearly 2,500 non-mechanised slaughterhouses and 412 markets, making food safety a complicated issue and causing difficulties in management.
In the first five months of the year, the city found food safety violations were taking place at nearly 8,000 of the 49,000 food establishments that were inspected.
Violators were fined a total of more than VNĐ13 billion (US$582,000) and unsafe food products were destroyed. — VNS