RADIOACTIVE?The admission comes amid mounting pressure from Japan and a discovery of foodstuffs that have entered the country under counterfeit origin labels
Taipei Times
Date: Mar 26, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌) yesterday acknowledged that the
A Taichung Health Bureau employee yesterday inspects products at a Matsusei (Sungching) supermarket to check whether there are any products imported from Japan’s nuclear disaster area. Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
ministry is mulling lifting its ban on imports of food products from five Japanese prefectures near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, following discoveries that more than 250 food products manufactured in the five areas have illegally entered the country with false origin labeling.
Chiang made the remarks when pressed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday morning to confirm reports that the government is deliberating relaxing the ban due to mounting pressure from the Japanese government.
“It is true that Japan has made such a request, actually more than once over the years since the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown. It stressed that its nation’s [food] products were safe, and to my knowledge, many other countries have agreed to similar requests,” Chiang said. [FULL STORY]
