SBK3023 FOOD SCIENCE

JOURNAL REVIEW

Journal 5:
Food Safety Standards and Regulations in Malaysia:
Implications for the ASEAN Integrated Region

NAME AND NO. ID CHONG XIN YI D20152072021

NUR HANA BINTI SYAMSUL D20152072024

IRENE TIONG D20152072038

SHAFIQAH AWATIF BINTI ZAHIR D20152072050

LECTURER DR. WONG CHEE FAH

DATE & DAY 10 MAY 2018

Meaning of Journal Title

Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage
of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. In this way food safety often overlaps
with food defences to prevent harm to consumers. This title is mean to encourage or
informing us about the food standard in each region in Asia. For each of the region, it has
different safety and standard for the food. But in many country, there is substantial variation
of the frequency of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs). The members that adopt the Codex
guidelines have the same trends and most likely to prevail in the other Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.

Objectives of Study

1. To check and monitoring the safety of the food in ASEAN countries, especially in
Malaysia.
2. To study the safety of the food that consumer in ASEAN countries consume.

Problem Statements of Study

There is some complexity in regulations for the food sector and also affect the consumer’s
demand for food safety. This is because the regulations differ significantly across food type,
such as raw and processed food, less and highly perishable food products, low or high
incidence of risk for human health. Next, we also encounter the problem of the higher cost of
money when applying the food safety system as it could spark more dialogue between
countries that leading to change and improvement in food system. We also face the quality of
the food process by other countries such as Indonesia and Thailand because majority of
people in Malaysia are Muslim and only consume the HALAL food only.

Benefits of Study

This paper is about food safety standards and regulations in Malaysia which is mainly about
the NTMs among ASEAN. Writers have suggested two ways to overcome different measures
among ASEAN. First, authorities should figure out harmonization on specific NTMs and
specific food sectors which are highly demand within ASEAN. Secondly, authorities should
also determine which of the NTMs is highly unfavourable as decreasing the economics
activities. Thus, we can conclude that the readers will aware about the food safety standard
and regulations in Malaysia as they finish read it. The significant of NTMs is highlighted in
the journal. Therefore, people will also know the importance of NTMs as NTMs is the
guidelines of food qualities and food labelling requirements. Based on our understanding of
journal, the benefit of the journal is to recommend and analyse better NTMs for ASEAN as
there are several standards and measures for each country in importing foods. Thus, it is
important to set universal guidelines among ASEAN if we want the economics activities
remain active and increase years by years. Without a common rules and regulations, small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face difficulties to run business and arguments among
countries will occur.

Summary of Study

Regulatory diversification in ASEAN led to increase the challenge of trade as NTMs and
non-tariff barriers (NTBs) dominated the food sector. Regulations vary across countries in
terms of the type, the desired level and the type of food. Due to the difference in these
regulations, it could disrupt trade and cause conflict between countries. In Malaysia, the
growth rate for food import from ASEAN is 15.9% from 2000-2014. In 2014, it represents
30.4 percent. Standard harmonization should be observe through trade intensity across
different food sub-sectors. There are 488 NTMS, which affect 1,359 tariffs found in food
regulations including technical measures. Technical measures are 55% TBTs and 45% SPS.
In TBT, NTMs are in product quality or performance requirements, followed by labelling and
packaging requirements while SPS emphasizes the limited use of certain ingredients in food
and feed and its contact materials, followed by labelling requirements. Therefore labelling for
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), and
restricted food items should be given priority in harmonizing regulatory standards as there are
various rules governing food labelling and nutrition throughout ASEAN. Singapore,
Malaysia, Brunei, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia have followed the guidelines of Codex. On
the other hand, Thailand and the Philippines, so far have adjusted the nutritional guidelines of
US nutrition and Member countries using the 'hazard' based- approach. Therefore, to
harmonize the food safety standards, the ASEAN Consultative Committee on Standards and
Quality (ACCSQ) and the ACCSQ Prepared Foodstuff Products Working Group (ACCSQ-
PFPWG) launching the principles of the ASEAN Principles of Food Control Systems
(ACPFCS), which includes regional requirements for pre-packaged foodstuff labelling. For
further development trade in the region, harmonious regulatory supervision needs to be
implemented gradually by prioritizing the harmonization task of considering specific NTMs
and certain sub-sectors of highly-traded food within ASEAN.

Novelty of Study
To claim something novel in a journal, it needs to possess “the quality of being new, original,
or unusual”. We would like to comment on the journal entitled “Food Safety Standards and
Regulations in Malaysia: Implications for the ASEAN Integrated Region” published in 9
November 2015. We have found something novel about the topic which makes it to be
published. Any research journal must meet certain criteria and standards that are set by the
editorial and review committee before it can be published. That said, we saw something novel
in the study, the main objective of which was the examination of the frequency and diversity
of NTMs in the food sector of Malaysia. We have searched and read some journal about the
NTMs, but this is the only journal that uses NTMs to examine its frequency and diversity in
the food sector of Malaysia.

Personal Opinion

1. Chong Xin Yi

In Malaysia, our import barriers are mainly used to preserve the environment and strategic
sectors. It also aims to keep and protect our cultural and religious norm such as halal
certification is important for licensing in importing meat and poultry into the country. With
NTMs, it is usually less direct which a country is subjective in the importing and exporting in
food sector. Differ safety regulation in highly tradable sector will cause conflicts between
countries and thus impede the trading as some of the NTMs are poorly designed and not
targeted at the right problem. (Cadot, Munadi, & Ing, 2013) By having harmonization of
NTMs in ASEAN, it certainly will increase cooperation between countries yet increase the
economic activities. From the long term of view, it brings more advantages as consumers can
get more choices in food with higher and better food safety and regulation. Consumers will
have foods and goods in better qualities since authorities are in the role in checking and
balancing.

2. Nur Hana Binti Syamsul

Harmonization of regulatory oversight is crucial to establishing a truly integrated ASEAN

market. This is to enhance ASEAN's economy and competitiveness in eliminating internal
tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Global harmonization of food safety regulations will help
ensure fair competition among countries in terms of trade and at the same time it will help
ensure that all populations enjoy the same degree of food safety (Motarjemi and Käferstein,
2001). The industry is looking for harmony as it reduces risks and costs across the entire food
system, protects brands, and potentially useful elements for risk-taking.
 3. Irene Tiong

Food safety is consequently getting more attention as the connections between food and
health are increasing recognised. In my opinion, we should aim to have transparent and good
quality of NTMs that could serve as a tool of check and balance for the quality of goods.
NTMs is very important because they serve to ensure food safety, protect health of humans,
animals and plants and protect the environment. To improve the analysis of NTMs and also
their quantitative evaluation, it is necessary to set up new methods of analysis and
comparison of NTMs that could be used to show why different types of NTMs are used in
specific situation. Besides, for technical measures like SPS and TBT, the standards
harmonization and conformity assessment improvement are desirable and cost less for
compliance.

4. Shafiqah Awatif Binti Zahir

Nowadays ASEAN countries are more expert in determining the quality of food standard in
their own region and many experts are continue to increase from day to day. With having
these people in each region in ASEAN, it helps that region to grow from times to times.
There are several ways to measure the quality of standard in food safety, but the mostly use is
NTMs. The NTMs are responsible to measures the quality standard of food in local and also
food that were imported. Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore are sharing their
resources to fulfil the daily needs in each region. These five regions complete the needs of
each other for the item such as fruits, woods, rubber and many more and sell if the resources
were too many in their region. This is where the NTMs do its job by measuring the quality
and standard of food that were imported. The most important job is to make sure that raw
item such as meat are fresh and follow the standardize that have been state by the Malaysia
government.

Reference

Cadot, O., Munadi, E., & Ing, L. Y. (2013). Streamlining NTMs in ASEAN : The Way
Forward. ERIA Discussion Paper Series, (ERIA-DP-2013-24).

Motarjemi, Y., & Käferstein, F. (2001). Future challenges in global harmonization of food
safety legislation. Food Control, 12(6), 339-346.