The CCASIA Region - Regional Coordinator China
The Coordinating Committee for Asia was established at the 11th Meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission held in Rome, Italy, in July 1976. Its first meeting was held in New Delhi (India) in January 1977.
The regional coordinator operates from within the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment.
China’s main priorities as coordinator include enhancing participation in Codex meetings, supporting the prioritization of Codex work in the region, improving harmonization of food safety standards and accelerating the revitalization of the coordinating committee by sharing information and providing regular updates on food safety issues within the region.
China also wishes to promote collaboration with observer organizations and improve efficient and effective communication between regional members FAO, WHO, and the Codex Secretariat.
CCASIA Coordinator
All information on Codex is public and free.
For regional enquiries contact:
CCASIA Secretariat
No.37,Guangqu Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022
Tel:
Tel: +86-10-52165402
Email: [email protected]
Spices webinar encourages compromise for achieving consensus on saffron and nutmeg
In a preview webinar held on 22 September 2022 ahead of the 6th session of the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH), taking place from 26 September to 3 October, Chairperson Dr M.R. Sudharsan, India, said the committee had learnt from its experience of operating virtually and many issues on standards being considered had been resolved by working groups meeting before the plenary sessions. “Now we are more focused, and hope delegates also have gained experience by attending other virtual meetings to help the committee discuss the important issues and make progress,” he said.
With a potentially never-ending workload of over 100 spices and herbs to develop standards for, the committee has grouped products based on the part of the plant from which the spice or herb is derived. Through these groupings and the development of a template it is expected that a series of standards for important spices could be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
The webinar heard from experts leading work on several spices in the Codex Step process including saffron and nutmeg which are close to being recommended for final adoption by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in November 2022 as well as ongoing work on chili peppers and paprika, small cardamom and turmeric. When setting standards for these products trade data and other published data are vital for the committee to be able to elaborate texts based on science, the webinar heard.
“Working virtually there is a time constraint,” said Sudharsan, encouraging delegates to plan their interventions on substantive issues and to be “prepared for some compromises in the interest of achieving consensus and making progress.”
Learn more
Working papers and provisional timetable on the CCSCH6 web pages