Vietnam’s Government is drafting a decree governing the safety of biotechnology-based foods, so the labeling of genetically modified foods is expected to start from 2015, according to the HCMC Biotechnology Center.

Duong Hoa Xo, director of the center, told the Daily on the sidelines of a seminar on biotechnology in the city on Monday that the Government had provided guidelines for the testing of gene modification on some farm produce.

Genetically modified foods can hit the market in 2015, he said, adding that according to the draft decree, foods that are over 5% genetically modified must be labeled as biotechnology application before going to the consumer.

The detailed regulations on such GM food labeling will be issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

According to some domestic and international scientists at the seminar, the biggest hindrances to the production and trading of such biotech-products will be high production cost, big investment in laboratories and highly skilled technical staff for the labeling job.

Vietnam’s biotech scientists said that the country was working on a pilot scheme for using biotech to grow corn, soybean and some other crops, so the country would need to develop a GM food labeling law.

Professor Paul Teng, dean of Graduate Programmes and Research Office of Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University, told the seminar that the mandatory labeling of GM foods would increase production cost by 12% and thereby lead to an increase of 10% in the product price.

In Canada’s Quebec for example, he said, a labeling system might cost some 160 million Canadian dollars.

The first biotech-products were commercialized in 1993, he said, and by December 2008, some 680 GM products had been approved by 64 countries, with about 40% of them in Asia.

He said that despite this high cost, some 25 countries were still genetically modifying farm produce thanks to higher output, reduced use of insecticides and a cleaner environment.

The scientists said at the seminar that the most important thing of the labeling was to provide customers with options for products and product information, not for safety reasons because all GM foods must be approved for sale by regulatory agencies after undergoing risk assessments.