New FDA food safety regulations in USA worry Thai exporters.

Is it safe? Imported food, that is? That's what the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to know about food coming into the country. But food exporters in Thailand are wondering if they'll be safe.

At press time, the FDA was planning mid-October publication of final regulations

The regulations will place heavy new responsibilities on many companies and individuals within the food and animal feed industries at home and abroad, and the government and the food export industry in Thailand are already concerned that exporters might fall victim to excessive zeal in the regulations and their enforcement.

As far as the FDA is concerned, it has all its ducks in a row:

* Registration by December 12, 2003, of all domestic and foreign facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for consumption by humans or animals in the US. An online registration system is under development and will be available around the clock once FDA publishes the final rule. Registration by mail will also be possible at that time.

* Prior notice to FDA of each article of food imported or offered for import into the US before the food arrives at the port of entry. This requirement also takes effect Dec. 12, 2003. Importers, in most circumstances, will be able to provide the required information to FDA using CBP's Automated Commercial System, currently used to obtain import information required by Customs.

* Creation and maintenance of records by domestic persons that manufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute, receive, hold, or import food for consumption in the US that identify the immediate previous sources and the immediate subsequent recipients of food (i.e., where it came from and where it went). Foreign facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for consumption in the US also would have to comply with this requirement.

Every link in the food chain, from farm or sea to table, must comply, the FDA argues, to protect American consumers from bioterrorism.

"There remains some uncertainty about how the measures will be implemented in practice, and team that we will not he able to adjust to comply in time," one Thai government official reacted.