The State Council recently issued the Implementing Regulations of the Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (Revised in 2019) (the "Regulations") which will take effect from December 1, 2019.

The Regulations strengthen supervision of food safety, require governments at and above county level to establish a unified and authoritative regulatory regime, reinforce the building of supervisory capacity, introduce extra regulatory means such as random supervisory checks, improve the reward system for whistleblowers, and establish the system of the blacklist of producers and operators with serious violations and the joint punishment mechanism against discreditable acts. Meanwhile, the Regulations optimize the fundamental systems concerning food safety risk monitoring, food safety standards and others, call for better application of food safety risk monitoring results, regulate the formulation of local food safety standards, and clearly specify the scope of enterprise standards subject to record-filing. Moreover, the Regulations ascertain the primary responsibility of producers and operators for food safety, detail the responsibilities of principals of enterprises, standardize the storage and delivery of food, forbid false advertising for food, and optimize the administrative system for special food. The Regulations also make improvement to the legal liability for food safety violations and clarify rigid legal liability accordingly in case of breach of the newly-added mandatory provisions.