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LEGISLATION on food safety is given a priority this year, as lawmakers gathered in Guangzhou for the six-day annual session of the 10th Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, which started yesterday.

Huang Liman, director of the congress, said at an interview the standing committee would focus on making 12 laws covering food safety, water resources protection, labor arbitration, medical waste treatment and port administration.

Another urgent task on the provincial congress chief's agenda was solving the problem of back wages.

"We will make it a priority to examine the implementation of the regulation of back wages and establish an arbitration mechanism to settle wage disputes to relieve the back-payment problems," said Huang.

She said the committee would examine laws on protecting handicapped people's rights, occupational disease prevention and treatment, and regulations on protecting investments by Taiwanese.

In addition, many members, attending the Fourth Session of the Ninth Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference which was started Tuesday, also put forward a proposal on food safety.

In a 130,000-character proposal, member Shen Yuanquan from a middle school in Wengyuan County, called for a legislation on food safety together with other 15 members.

"The urgent task is to control food safety from the source, a law governing food safety is badly needed to strengthen food safety monitoring and improve food safety mechanism."

Shen suggested the government promote standards in food production.

A member from Heyuan in northern Guangdong called for mandatory premarital checkups.

"In a city of 3 million population, only 20 people had premarital checkups in the past two years in Heyan," Huang Mingtai said.

Since the obligatory premarital checkups became optional in October 2003, the number of health checkups dropped from 1,878 in 2002-03 period to 20 in 2004-05 period, while the rate of newborns with birth defects has risen from 12.86?? percent to 19.89??.

Editor: Yan