EU updates food safety import list, Indian Basmati rice may off the list.

The Indian basmati rice is one of the products to be removed from an EU list of food imports subject to heightened scrutiny while some herbs and spices from Thailand have been added, said Brussels as it updated the register on July 15, 2010.

The European Union introduced new measures at the start of this year to step up border controls on a range of foods of non-animal origin in a bid to boost food safety in the region.

The measures, laid out in Regulation (EC) No 669/2009, provide for the first time a set of common rules for official controls on foods.

Following the first quarterly review of the list, bananas from the Dominican Republic and basmati rice from India will be de-listed from Annex 1 of the register. But the European Commission said that after “careful evaluation” herbs and spices from Thailand, paprika and chilli from Peru, curry leaves from India, noodles from China and some fruit and vegetables from Egypt were now to be included after a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) endorsed the recommendations.

Source : fnbnews.com