ENG-2017 — Page 213

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Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries

During 2017, the department issued 7,909 full, provisional and temporary food business. licences, 1,015 permits for the sale of restricted foods (including 146 online restricted food permits), 1,926 licences for places of public entertainment, 49 licences for other trades, 1,219 liquor and club liquor licences, and 10 permits for karaoke establishments in premises with restaurant licences.

Food Safety and Labelling

The Centre for Food Safety safeguards food sold in Hong Kong, ensuring it is fit for consumption. It took about 67,000 samples of food at import, wholesale and retail levels for chemical, microbiological and radiological testing in 2017. The overall satisfaction rate of these tests was 99.8 per cent.

During the year, the Animal Inspection Station at Man Kam To inspected 37,808 vehicles carrying live food animals including pigs, cattle, goats and poultry. The station examined 1,552,902 live food animals and tested 819 blood and 560 urine, faecal and tissue samples for zoonotic disease and veterinary drug residues.

The nutrition labelling scheme requires pre-packaged foods, unless exempted, to carry labels. that provide information about energy and specified nutrients, and also specifies the conditions for making nutrition claims. The scheme helps consumers make informed food choices, regulates misleading or deceptive labels and nutrition claims, and encourages food manufacturers to apply sound nutrition principles in formulating foods. The centre conducts visual checks on pre-packaged food products to ensure compliance with statutory nutrition- labelling requirements and takes food samples for chemical analysis to verify the nutrition information and claims.

The bureau and the centre review and update food safety standards and regulatory arrangements.

Since the Pesticide Residues in Food Regulation came into effect in 2014, the centre had taken more than 130,500 food samples at import, wholesale and retail levels to test for pesticide residues. The overall satisfaction rate was above 99.8 per cent by the end of 2017.

The amended Imported Game, Meat, Poultry and Eggs Regulations regulates the import of poultry eggs to better protect Hong Kong from avian influenza.

Public Markets and Cooked Food Markets

The FEHD operates 101 public markets, including 25 free-standing cooked food markets. There are some 14,400 stalls selling fresh products, cooked food, light refreshments and household items and providing service trades. At the end of 2017, the overall occupancy rate at these markets was 89.2 per cent. The department enhances the operating environment of the public markets by improving management, upgrading facilities such as electricity supply, lighting systems and fire services installations, providing a more flexible mix of trade, and carrying out promotional activities such as festive celebrations. Besides regular maintenance, programmes are in place to replace by phases aged lifts and escalators, and to retrofit air-conditioning

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