Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cao Duc Phat
"I want to apologise to the public for not properly expressing myself in my last speech which meant people misunderstood my points," Phat said in a meeting with local media on April 3.
In a National Assembly meeting on April 1, the minister said, "Most of the food in our markets are safe but local people just don't know about them."
His statement stirred up anger and criticism among the public as many people thought the minister had downplayed the seriousness of the issue.
In response to the public reaction, the minister explained that people had misunderstood his point due to a poor choice of words on his part.
"I wanted to say that there are contaminated foods but there are also lots of safe food, but local people don't have information about them or aren’t in a position to know how to find them,” Phat said.
Phat admitted that he was well aware of the crisis and understood that food safety was partly the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The minister said that besides a stronger fight against contaminated food in the coming time, his ministry would build more safe food production facilities and widely inform so that people all know where to get safe foods.
"We see food safety as a first priority," he confirmed.