May 2, 2001
Tokyo

Mr.Chikara Sakaguchi
Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare

Re: Proposal to the Codex Committee on Food Labelling Meeting

Dear Mr. Sakaguchi,

We request following matters to the Japanese government delegation concerning the Codex Committee on Food Labelling Meeting Twenty-ninth Session which starts on May 1 in Ottawa, Canada.

1. On Agenda Item 5, "The Labelling of Foods obtained through Certain Techniques of Genetic Modification", we support Consumers International's proposal.
Mandatory labelling of all food containing any genetically altered ingredients should be adopted in the meeting.

2. The Japanese government delegation has not yet disclosed sufficient information on this Codex Committee Meeting to Japanese consumers and citizens. We request the Japanese government delegation to provide us with the following information.

1) The name of main speaker of the Japanese delegation.
We request the Japanese government delegation to speak about mandatory labelling system of Japan as from April 1, 2001, and to express the necessity of mandatory labelling of all food containing genetically altered ingredients for consumers to have their basic right to know and to make choice. Kindly provide us with report on the discussion you had on Agenda Item 5 by e-mail before May 6, 2001.

2) Regarding Agenda Item 10, we believe that discussion paper on Country of Origin Labelling (CX/FL 01/12) should be regarded highly. We believe that the Japanese government delegation should also support the proposal made by the United Kingdom Delegation.

Sincerely yours,

Signed by: Yoko Tomiyama
Chairperson
Consumers Union of Japan
Contact :Yasuaki Yamaura, Vice Chairperson
Consumers Union of Japan
Phone:+81 3 3711 7766
fax: +81 3 3715 9378
E-mail: nishoren@jca.apc.org

cc:Codex Secretariat
:Japanese Government Delegation
:Ms. Jean Halloran, CI
:Dr. Nita Pillai, CI
:Dr. Michael Hansen, CI
:Dr. Alice Escalante-de Cruz, CI-ROAP