G/TBT/W/446  
 
11 April 2016  
(16-2006)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
CHINESE TAIPEI - GMO LABELLING 
STATEMENT BY THE SEPARATE CUSTOMS TERRITORY OF TAIWAN, PENGHU, KINMEN AND MATSU 
TO THE COMMITTEE ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE, 9-10 MARCH 2016  
 
The following communication, dated 7 April 2016, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of The Separate Customs Territo ry of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. 
 
 
_______________ 
 
1.  According to Articles 22, 24 and 25 of th e Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, 
prepackaged food, food additives, and unpackaged food shall indicate genetically modified food 
raw materials in Chinese. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) therefore have to modify the 
labeling regulations for food containing GMOs. Addi tionally, the food safety authority has to offer 
people safe and healthy food, satisfy people's right to know, and follow the EU's labelling regulations for GM products. 
2.  The MOHW has held technical experts meetings to discuss the collecting comments and has 
fully communicated with the different stakeholders. According to meetings' conclusions, the MOHW announced "Labeling requirements for prepackaged food, food additives and unpackaged food containing ingredients of genetically modified  organisms" on 29 May 2015, and have already 
notified WTO Members. The labelling threshold is maintained at 3%. For the GMO requirements for 
prepackaged food and food additives, the implementation date will be Dec 31, 2015. 
3.  Different countries developed their own labe lling threshold of GMO content. Compared with 
New Zealand and Australia's 1%, the EU's 0.9%, and China's zero tolerance, the MOHW's 3% is 
not harsh. In addition, for highly refined foods, we only request that foods that are "directly" 
manufactured using GMOs, yet for which the final product does not contain transgenic DNA 
fragments or transgenic proteins, such as soybean oil, soy sauce, corn oil, corn starch, corn syrup, 
cottonseed oil, canola oil, to be labelled, which is not as stringent as the EU or China. 
4.  In order to avoid consumers' misunderstanding that there is a genetically modified equivalent 
of each food material, the MOHW has to limit the scope of labelling non-GMOs. 
5.  Genetically modified food raw materials are allowed to be imported to Chinese Taipei, if the 
genetically modified food raw materials are review ed by the central competent authority in health 
risk assessment, filing product registration and procuring a permit document. In order to provide 
clear information to consumers and respect the consumer's right of knowledge, we have to 
improve labelling regulations. 
6.  According to "Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation" Article 30, application for inspection 
with the central competent authority and declaration of the relevant information of the product are 
required and shall be in accordance with the customs commodity code and classification when importing foods, genetically modified food raw ma terials, food additives, food utensils, food 
containers or packaging and food cleansers desi gnated by the central competent authority in a 
public announcement. The CCC code  of genetically modified (GM)  food raw materials can be 
inquired of website G/TBT/W/446 
 
- 2 - 
 
  7.  According to "Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation" Article 32, in order to investigate and 
prevent food sanitation and safety incidents, the competent authority may require food businesses, non-food businesses or their represen tative to provide relevant records, documents 
and electronic files or databases of the imported products when necessary. In this case, the food 
businesses, the non-food businesses, or their repr esentatives shall not evade, impede or refuse 
such requests. The food businesses shall retain the related records, documents, electronic files, or 
database of imported products and genetically modified food raw materials mentioned in the 
preceding paragraph for five years. 
8.  According to the announcement "Food Businesses Shall Establish Traceability System of Food 
Products, food importers of genetically modified (GM) food raw materials applying for business registration, company registration or factory registration shall establish their own traceability 
system of food product since 5 February 2015, an d shall upload traceability information of last 
month to the website ( http://ftracebook.fda.gov.tw ) before 10th of each month since 1 January 
2016. Finally, the food importers shall use electric uniform invoices if they have to use uniform 
invoices referred to "Value-added and Non-value-added Business Tax Act" on January 1, 2017. 
9.  For the purpose of strengthening food chain management, MOHW announces "Draft of Food 
Businesses Shall Establish Traceability System of F ood Products, and is in the progress of notifying 
the WTO Members (G/TBT/N/TPKM/207). During the comment period, there are no 
recommendations or responses about the draft re gulation from WTO Members. Therefore, MHOW 
announces the "Food Businesses Shall Establish Traceability System of Food Products after integrating opinions from domestic food industry, and have informed the WTO/TBT simultaneously 
(G/TBT/N/TPKM/207/Add.1). 
__________