Following recent food safety concerns, the government is planning a legislation for a registration system for imported eggs into Hong Kong, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow said yesterday.

If such a law is enacted, only eggs from farms registered with the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) can be imported, accompanied by health certificates, into Hong Kong. It will also empower the government to recall suspect food items on sale in the market.

Pending consensus among legislators, Chow will submit the legislative proposal and timetable to the Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene within a month or two.

Legislators cutting across all party affiliations hailed the legislative proposal. However, they urged the government to submit a bill as soon as possible even without consensus in order to show the government's resolve.

Many legislators further criticized the government for reacting slowly to the tainted eggs and fishes imported from the mainland. In the end, the panel unanimously carried a motion, which was moved by Fred Li and amended by Wong Kwok-hing, to criticize the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department's (FEHD) delay in notifying the public about the suspect eggs which were sold in Hong Kong and urged the government to overhaul the food safety mechanism and improve the legislative back-up.

Addressing a special panel meeting yesterday in the wake of string of food safety incidents in recent weeks, Chow vowed to tighten up food safety control at source and work closely with industry in order to trace the origins if necessary.

"The incident had sparked huge public concern," he told the meeting. "Last week, I spoke to the media without commanding full information and I apologized to the public the next day. The FEHD intended to inform the public until getting hold of full information but this proved a misjudgment.

"They have now learnt a lesson and will improve the way of communication with the public. In future, I will ask the FEHD to explain in simple, layman's terms about the risks and let the citizens to decide whether to consume such food or not," Chow said.

On November 21, Chow said he learnt from the State General Administration for Quality Inspection, Inspection and Quarantine that suspect eggs were not imported into Hong Kong. But the next day, he said examinations revealed that a chicken egg and a duck egg in Hong Kong were found to be containing Sudan dyes (though at a rather low level) and apologized to the public for the flip-flop.

At the same meeting, FEHD director Eddy Chan offered his apology to Chow and the public as well. "Owing to insufficient information and the fact that eggs were not sold to the public, I did not report to the Secretary, thus causing him to mislead the public. As department head, I am responsible for such big incident," he said.

On the fish imports, Chow said with the help of mainland authorities, a registration system was set up last year and so far more than 60 fish farms had been registered. He called for cooperation of Hong Kong merchants to ensure the fishes are not contaminated during delivery.

"We have not banned freshwater fishes from coming and it is only the industry that decided not to import fishes. If the fishes come from registered farms and are accompanied by health certificates, they can be imported again," he said.