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70% street food vendors in Saigon’s District 1 fail to meet safety standards


TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED : 02/17/2017 11:01 GMT + 7

Less than 30 percent of roadside food stalls in downtown Ho Chi Minh City satisfy food safety and hygiene requirements, results from a collective report by local clinics show.

The report was made public at a meeting chaired by the municipal People’s Council on Thursday to review the enacted food safety laws in District 1 during the 2015-16 period.

Hygiene inspections of 2,222 local street food vendors in District 1 during 2016 by ten public clinics revealed that only 663 met food safety standards.

The number was a slight improvement from 2015 reports, which indicated that less than 11 percent of street stalls in the downtown district strictly adhered to food safety regulations.

The district’s Preventive Medicine Center is currently planning to establish street food-free streets in three of its wards, potentially by the end of this year, according to Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, deputy chairwoman of District 1’s administration.

The streets to be purged of street food are Le Duan in Ben Nghe Ward, Phung Khac Khoan in Da Kao Ward, and Le Cong Kieu in Nguyen Thai Binh Ward, Huong said.

The district’s administration also has plans to force the closing of three temporary markets on Ton That Dam, Nguyen Van Trang, and Co Giang streets to improve the appeal of the downtown area.

In April, the district administration announced a pilot project to establish exclusive street food zones in two areas along Nguyen Van Chiem Street and at the park along the Bach Dang Harbor in an effort to end the illegal occupation of sidewalks and roadways by vendors and remove food safety threats.