Li Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), gives speech at 2015 International Conference on Food Safety, June 15, 2015. (China Economic Net/Wang Zebiao)

Beijing, June 15 (China Economic Net) - Against the backdrop of closer global cooperation on food safety, 2015 International Conference on Food Safety, the largest international conference ever hosted by China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) for the field of food safety supervision since its foundation in 2013, was held on Monday.

While addressing the conference, Li Yong, Director General of United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) said that "China's government has implemented a number of important measures, such as strengthening supervision, enacting and enforcing laws, improving food safety standards and raising public awareness to address the food safety issue".

Food Safety is one of the ongoing UNIDO-China cooperation focuses, based on the UNIDO-China Strategic Cooperation Framework (2014-2016) approved by the State Council in 2014, Li Yong added.

Over the past few years, Chinese food enterprises have got support from UNIDO to gain international certification for their food safety management systems. Four provinces (Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Fujian) were supported to implement the ISO 22000 food safety management system standard. A regional training base for food testing was set-up in Dali, Yunnan, to serve both China and the broader ASEAN region.

UNIDO has just signed an MOU with CFDA to further strengthen a cooperation program on food safety. As of next week, UNIDO and CFDA will focus on building the food safety training system at CFDA and its institutions as the first phase of future cooperation in food safety. The cooperation will start with the development of the CFDA food safety textbook system with focus on the dairy sector, and a series of training courses including a Train the Trainer program will be implemented in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Shandong.

With "Food Safety, International Governance" as the theme, 2015 International Conference on Food Safety is organized by the UNIDO, WHO and the Netherlands Embassy to China, hosted by CFDA, and undertaken by China Center for Food and Drug International Exchange and China Economy Net.