CHINA / SOCIETY
Imported seafood must be tested for coronavirus before being sold: Beijing's Fengtai district
Published: Jun 29, 2020 12:51 AM

Food and Drug Administration employees check salmon in a Sam’s Club store in Beijing on June 13. Photo: Li Hao/GT


Vendors in Xinfadi market in Beijing's Fengtai district must provide certificates showing their imported seafood products have been tested free of the coronavirus before they can sell them to consumers, local authorities said on Sunday.

According to a report by Beijing news site bjnews.com on Sunday evening, market supervisors in Beijing's southwest Fengtai district conducted on-site inspections of two cold storage sites in the district and imported seafood was the "focus" of their inspection.

China has enhanced its inspection and quarantine of imported goods following the latest coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, as an investigation at Xinfadi market found that a chopping board for imported salmon tested positive for the virus.

According to Guo Shaomin, director of the Food Section of the market supervision administration of Fengtai district, local authorities have conducted a thorough investigation of frozen-food warehouses in the district. There are 12 large-scale cold storage warehouse with an area of more than 1,000 square meters in Fengtai, and two were inspected on Sunday.

Officials have focused on key information such as whether people in charge of the cold storage have had a nucleic acid test, whether there are wild animals in storage, as well as the daily disinfection records.

So far, 1,089 refrigerated and frozen food business households have been inspected in Fengtai district, and the operating personnel, operating environment, and business products of 11 large-scale cold stores have completed nucleic acid testing.

Global Times