Hong Kong will continue to adhere to the stringent food additive standards of international authorities, a senior official said yesterday, after mainland experts said stevioside, a suspected cancer-causing sweetener, was safe.
Dr Mak Sin-ping, deputy director of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, said after meeting representatives of the Stevia Association of Hong Kong, which promotes the sweetener's use, that the department would not relax its standards.
'We will continue to follow the authorities on the standard of food additives and will not allow the use of this banned sweetener in Hong Kong,' she said, adding that the Government reserved the right to prosecute food importers.
The remark came after mainland experts said they had found no cases in which stevioside, which was approved by the Chinese Government as a food additive in 1986, had produced undesirable side effects. It is popular because it is sweeter than sugar and contains no calories, but is banned in the United States and most of Europe.
'There is no official ruling so far denouncing foods containing stevioside in China. We think stevioside is legal and secure,' the China Daily quoted Qi Qingzhong, secretary-general of the China Food Additive Association, as saying yesterday.
The newspaper also quoted a member of China's National Technical Committee on the Standardisation of Food Additives as saying the bans were the consequence of 'media hype'.