Vietnam Plans to Amend the Food Safety Law

Recently, Vietnam submitted Notification G/TBT/N/VNM/339, planning to amend the Food Safety Law. This notification elaborately stipulates the amendment of several provisions of the Food Safety Law.

1. Cancel the requirements for translation and notarization of English-language legal documents after consular authentication, and accept the electronic versions of legal documents.

2. Allow the use of the test results of health supplements from production facilities that comply with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), without the need to send them to designated or accredited testing laboratories for testing.

3. In accordance with the suggestions of the government supervision agency, stipulate the number of times (up to 3 times) that an enterprise can submit supplementary application documents and the deadline (30 days) for the enterprise to submit supplementary application documents, which is applicable to the order of food categories that require the registration of product declarations according to the suggestions.

4. Add regulations on the import of food donated by organizations and individuals for charitable purposes rather than for commercial purposes, so as to simplify the procedures and processes compared with food commercial activities.

5. Add a provision authorizing the Ministry of Health to develop a unified management software from the central to local levels to address administrative procedures and product quality management issues in the health department.

6. Add a provision on registering product declarations for mixed food additive products with new uses, which is applicable to food additives that are not included in the list of additives allowed to be used in food by the Ministry of Health or are not specified for specific users.

7. Reduce and simplify some administrative procedures.

8. Simplify the registration procedures for advertising confirmation and the issuance procedures for certificates of food safety compliant facilities.

9. Add a procedure for exempting testing facilities from regular inspections and supervision.

10. Simplify the requirements for registration documents of designated testing facilities, which are currently regulated by Joint Circular 20/2013/TTLT-BYT-BCT-BNNPTNT. This circular stipulates the conditions and procedures for the designation of food testing facilities for state management.

Grant the Certificate of Free Sale for food products (except health products), health certificates of export food and other related certificates to local authorities.

1. Stipulate that only the manufacturing institution or the product owner can be named in the declaration documents. If it is not one of the above two entities, the organization or individual responsible for putting the product on the market must have a power of attorney from the manufacturing institution or the product owner.

2. Control the changes after product announcement: Add the situations where re-announcement is required if the organization or individual responsible for putting the product on the market, the manufacturing institution, the place of origin, the product name, ingredients, uses, targets, dosage, concentration, ingredient content (responsible for the intended use of the product), dosage form, quality and safety indicators and testing methods change.

3. Add provisions on withdrawing and suspending the acceptance of product declaration registration certificates, food advertising content confirmation certificates, and withdrawing certificates of food safety compliant facilities, specifically stipulating the situations of withdrawal and the withdrawal authorities.

4. For functional foods, the provisions of the Product Information File (PIF) include records according to the provisions of the advanced management system applied by the functional food facilities.

5. Require organizations and individuals to provide standards including testing methods of safety indicators and quality indicators in the declaration and registration documents, so that the document receiving institution can provide them to public testing units for deploying market monitoring sampling.

6. Add provisions on national management of food testing (including the conditions for national management of food testing facilities and verification testing facilities; registration documents of designated testing facilities; designation procedures and recall situations).

1. Supplement and clarify the concept of functional foods that are first launched on the market.

2. Modify and add the concept of scientific basis for product use.

1. Modify and add the concept of dietary supplements to control the characteristics and uses of this product.

2. Regarding the self-declaration procedure for food products: Clearly stipulate that the designated national management agency is responsible for publishing the self-declaration documents on the unit's electronic information page within 7 days after receiving the documents; at the same time, it is necessary to review the records (regarding product classification, uses, users, ingredients) within 3 months after the organization or individual makes the self-declaration to ensure that the product has been correctly declared according to its nature and regulations.