HONG KONG, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- The food safety authority of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said Thursday that it has decided to narrow the scope of testing for imported eggs from European Union (EU) countries.
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the HKSAR government's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said it will narrow down the arrangement for holding poultry eggs from all EU countries for testing at import level to covering only five EU countries, namely the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy.
The decision, with immediate effect, was made in view of the fact that the EU Ministerial Conference on the follow-up of the fipronil incident was held earlier, a co-ordinated EU-wide monitoring plan on the presence of illegally used substances in eggs and poultry meat was implemented immediately, and there was no new development of the incident, the CFS said.
The CFS has held eggs imported from all EU countries for testing at import level since Aug. 14 as a precautionary measure.
"According to the information we have obtained, except for poultry eggs from these five countries which were involved in the incident, there is no information showing that there is illegal use of fipronil in poultry eggs in other EU countries," said a spokesman for the CFS. "We will continue to hold poultry eggs from these five countries for testing at import level, and they will only be released to the market upon satisfactory test results."
According to the spokesman, since the incident, other than the unsatisfactory samples which were announced earlier, the CFS has collected 160 samples of poultry eggs and egg products for chemical testing, including testing for fipronil, and "all test results were satisfactory."
The CFS will continue to monitor the latest development of the incident and suitably adjust the follow-up action to safeguard food safety and public health, it said.
