A Voice of Vietnam (VOV) reporter has interviewed Dr. Ho Tat Thang, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Standards and Consumers’ Association.

Reporter: What is your assessment of the current real situation of food hygiene and safety, particularly when the lunar New Year Festival is drawing near?

Mr Thang: Recently, according the mass media, consumers are no longer keen to buy things with unclear origins due to information about frozen products imported from foreign countries, many kinds of low-quality fat and used vegetable oil.

Even fruits imported from China have been branded with fake origins such as the USA and Canada while dairy products are poor in protein.

To protect themselves, consumers should be able to discriminate good quality products and substandard products. In addition, they need to have enough evidence to verify that the quality of those products have been checked by the State’s authorized agencies.

Reporter: Despite too many warnings, low-quality products are still sold widely on the market. What are tough measures that should be taken to deal with the situation?

Mr Thang: State agencies should have closer coordination with other relevant ministries and sectors in examining food hygiene and safety regularly and they need to double-check the whole production process of foodstuff before granting license to prevent them from marketing unsafe and bad-quality products.

How to improve consumers’ knowledge. They should be wise to choose safe products to protect their benefits. Consumers tend to be afraid to complain, lodge lawsuits and fight against negative phenomenon. An action that does not buy or use these products is a negative measure as it just protects consumers themselves not all the society. We must strongly fight against negative phenomenon.

Communications and press agencies should get involve and bring all negative cases into public to warn consumers. They should honour true businesses which produce high quality products and help consumers choose safe products.

Reporter: It is very dangerous for consumers to purchase poor quality or fake products during the Traditional Lunar New Year festival (Tet). Where does the association stand when protecting consumers as we approach Tet?

Mr Thang: We hope the Food Hygiene and Safety Management Agency under the Ministry of Health strengthens checking and inspection. Only businesses which meet requirements on food hygiene and safety are allowed to run. The agency must strictly manage food on the market which have clear origins and are of a high quality.

The association will closely work with State agencies such as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to prevent low quality and fake products. It has set up offices to receive consumers’ complaints.

When consumers buy low quality, fake products or goods which violate intellectual property rights, they can contact us at addresses 214 path 22 Ton That Tung Street in Hanoi or 49 Pasteur Road in Ho Chi Minh City to get consultancy. We will deal with complaints and ask suppliers to compensate consumers.

Reporter: Thank you very much.