The Chinese Ministry of Health has been given primary responsibility for food safety supervision under the latest draft of legislation that was submitted to the National People's Congress Standing Committee for a second reading on Monday.

A commentary in the Beijing Youth Daily says that the draft rules out all articles regarding the supervisory coding system. Many experts and companies thought the coding system was not complex enough to prevent falsification. The current system requires more personnel, equipment and investment from food companies, while the barcode system has already been widely adopted. One barcode matches one product. With the barcode, supervisory organizations can track a product from manufacture to distribution to sale, to evaluate quality and enable expedient recalls.

The paper says the draft law nails down specific guidelines for food safety to avoid an overlap in monitoring and cut down on inefficiency. The health authority will also shoulder a range of new tasks, including risk evaluation, standard-setting, investigation into accidents and information release.