The second China-ASEAN Cooperation Forum on Food Safety, Nutrition and Health was held in Fangchenggang, Guangxi. With the theme of "Join hands to build a unified China-ASEAN food safety, nutrition and health", the forum conducted in-depth discussions and shared experiences on food safety standards and nutrition and health policies to help promote the implementation of the framework of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and use Fangchenggang International Medical Open Experimental Zone to promote the construction of food safety and nutrition innovation platform, as well as the exploration and utilization of edible and medicinal substances, new food raw materials and traditional foods in various countries.
The forum was co-sponsored by the National Health and Wellness Commission of China, state administration of traditional chinese medicine of China, the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention of China and the People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Officials from health administrative departments of China and ASEAN countries, representatives of the World Health Organization in China, authoritative experts in food safety, nutrition and health, and business representatives participated online and offline.
Liu Jinfeng, Director of Food Department of China National Health and Wellness Committee, said in his speech that China National Health and Wellness Committee has implemented the concept of "the strictest standards" and "big food" and achieved positive results in food safety and nutrition and health. Guangxi has done a lot of work in exploring pilot projects of food and medicine homologous substances, promoting the development of healthy food industry and building demonstration sites such as nutritious and healthy canteens. Especially relying on Fangchenggang International Medical Open Experimental Zone, China National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center, Guangxi Health and Wellness Committee and Fangchenggang Municipal People's Government are jointly building an innovative platform for food safety and nutrition for SCO member countries and ASEAN countries.
Li Yongqiang, deputy director of the Health and Wellness Committee of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that the food safety and nutrition innovation platform of SCO member countries and ASEAN countries built in Fangchenggang will make full use of the extremely rich food and drug homologous substances in Guangxi, neighboring provinces and even Southeast Asia, build a technical platform for cooperation and exchange with ASEAN countries in the field of food safety and nutrition, and build a characteristic food industry chain of "innovation platform leading-healthy food research and development-healthy food industry incubation-healthy food production". At present, the first phase of the innovation platform project has achieved initial results.
It is reported that with the deepening cooperation between China and ASEAN, Guangxi and ASEAN have carried out pragmatic exchanges and cooperation in seven areas, including disease prevention and control, maternal and child health, food safety and nutrition and health. Fangchenggang is located at the forefront of open cooperation between China and ASEAN, and has good conditions for food safety, nutrition and health cooperation. The Construction Plan of Food Safety and Nutrition Innovation Platform in Fangchenggang International Medical Open Experimental Zone was officially issued in July this year. The functions of research and development, incubation, achievement transformation and industrialization of the platform have gradually emerged, and the layout of "innovation platform+incubation platform+industrial park" for the health food industry has gradually taken shape. At the same time, according to the development plan of Fangchenggang International Medical Experimental Zone, Fangchenggang City is laying out and building a series of national functional platforms to provide solid support and guarantee for the development of new food raw materials, edible medicinal substances, local specialty foods and other food and nutrition health industries.
The mayor of Fangchenggang said that Fangchenggang has "the right time, the right place and the right people", and it is "the time is ripe" to carry out cooperation in food safety, nutrition and health and accelerate the development of food health industry, hoping to continuously deepen pragmatic cooperation with all parties.