Improving mechanisms and policies on food safety must aim to best protect public health, helping people feel more secure when using daily food products while creating a transparent and favourable environment for legitimate food producers and traders, said Party General Secretary To Lam on March 11.
Chairing the first-quarter meeting of the Standing Board of the Central Steering Committee on Perfecting Institutions and Laws, he underlined that violations involving the production and trading of substandard food threatening public health must be handled strictly.
The Party leader asked the Government Party Committee to direct relevant ministries and sectors to conduct a comprehensive review of the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on food safety. Based on the review, authorities should determine orientations and tasks for improving food safety management mechanisms and policies in the coming period.
He emphasised that efforts should go beyond revising and supplementing the Law on Food Safety and its guiding documents. Shortcomings related to standards, technical regulations, product quality management and goods supervision should be addressed in a coordinated manner to ensure feasibility and alignment with international practices.
Regarding amendments to the Law on Food Safety, the Party leader said the goal is to build a modern, coherent and effective legal framework, elaborating that management should shift from fragmented control of individual stages to comprehensive oversight of the entire food value chain.
Supervision should cover all stages, from raw materials and production to processing, distribution, trading and consumption, he said, noting this approach would help overcome overlapping management while improving the ability to prevent risks and respond promptly to food safety incidents.
He added that the move would also promote the development of clean, safe and high-quality food production, meeting domestic demand and enabling Vietnam to participate more deeply in global safe food supply chains.
At the meeting, participants discussed draft documents, including a proposal on legislative orientations for the 16th-tenure National Assembly and an outline of a strategy to improve Vietnam’s legal system in the new era. Reports on mechanisms and policies to institutionalise the Party’s guidelines on private economic development were also mulled over.
Concluding the meeting, the Party leader commended agencies involved in preparing the reports and proposals and asked them to incorporate feedback from participants to further refine the documents.
Regarding law-making priorities for the 16th National Assembly, he stressed the need to prioritise the institutionalisation of key contents of the 14th National Party Congress documents in 2026, while ensuring consistency with the Politburo’s orientations on improving Vietnam’s legal system to meet development requirements in the new era.
On policies to promote private sector development under Politburo Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW, he called for further concretising Party guidelines and promptly issuing detailed regulations so that institutionalised policies can soon take effect.
Relevant agencies were urged to continue refining mechanisms to create a favourable investment and business climate, reduce legal compliance costs, and improve access to resources such as land, capital, science and technology, innovation and digital transformation.
The Party chief stressed that support policies should enable household businesses to develop into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), SMEs to grow into large companies, and major firms to become corporations of regional and global stature.
