Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 17
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Creation of Food Safety Agency in Azerbaijan will make it possible to control products along their entire path to consumers, Agriculture Minister Heydar Asadov told reporters in Baku Feb. 17.
The minister noted that the function of ensuring food safety was distributed among several agencies in Azerbaijan. Each of these agencies carried out a certain part of the work, which sometimes made it impossible to provide control throughout the value chain, he added.
“The creation of the agency will allow not only to concentrate supervision in one structure, but will also provide control over the quality of products from field to end consumer,” Asadov said.
Asadov stressed that the agriculture ministry will do everything necessary to timely transfer its authorities to the Food Safety Agency.
“As is known, the ministry has created a big laboratory base over the past three years,” the minister said. “We are currently in the process of transferring these laboratories, as well as qualified personnel working in these laboratories, to the Food Safety Agency.”
On Jan. 26, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on additional measures to ensure the activity of the Food Safety Agency.
According to the order, to strengthen the material and technical base of the Food Safety Agency and to further improve the efficiency of the work conducted to ensure food safety, the state property consisting of laboratories, including administrative buildings, material and technical bases are transferred from the balance of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Healthcare to the balance of the Food Safety Agency.