Vietnam To Quickly Restore Milk Market

HANOI, Oct 20 (Bernama) -- Vietnam will further closely monitor the milk market, improve milk testing system and swiftly restore the supply of safe milk products for consumers nationwide, a leading health official said.The move is in response to the discovery of melamine in 24 separate products in the country during China's tainted milk scandal.Milk containing melamine has been blamed for the deaths of several babies and causing illness in more than 54,000 others in China, the Vietnam news agency (VNA) reported."Although the volume of melamine-contaminated milk and milk products made up only 1 percent of the country's total imports, we should move quickly to restore the market and ensure the supply of safe products for consumers," Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu said.He made these remarks at a press conference held by the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee for Sanitation to review the control of melamine milk contamination.Trieu said his ministry has yet to determine a melamine safety level before the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) give guidelines on the issue.However, the Health Ministry, WHO and FAO had earlier said in a joint statement that melamine has never been recognised as an approved substance in food.The 9th meeting of health ministers from 10 ASEAN member countries, which took place in Manila, the Philippines, from October 8-11, also agreed to absolutely prohibit the use of melamine, even in trace amounts, in food products.In Vietnam, melamine has been found in around 380 tonnes of milk powder materials imported from China by a number of local companies.Inspection task missions have sealed off 143.5 tonnes of liquid milk, 240 tonnes of milk powder and cream powder and 0.5 tonnes of biscuits and candies, discovered to have contaminated with melamine, in addition to 274 tonnes of milk suspected for containing the toxin.Vietnam imported around 772 tonnes of milk and cream powder from China in the first nine months of this year.According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the General Department of Customs, this was only a small volume compared with the country's total milk imports.