China released a five-year plan last week, upgrading its food
safety regulations, Food Safety News reports. The new plan,
developed by the country's Ministry of Health, sets out to
update existing standards, write new ones, and in general close
loopholes and abolish ambiguities. The framework was announced
on the heels of China's Food Safety Week. Despite the spate of
China food scandals in recent years, the country has more than
2,000 national food regulations and more than 2,900 industry-
based regulations. "Many of the regulations are overlapping or
contradict each other, since multiple government agencies were
given the responsibility of compiling their own standards years
ago," said the government in a statement. The plan calls for
coordination between 14 different government departments,
including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and
Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture, to complete
reviewing and revamping the existing standards by 2015. "The
government will prioritize safety standar