Details added (first version posted on 11:58)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 14
By Huseyn Valiyev – Trend:
Azerbaijan’s Food Safety Agency offers private businesses to conduct examination of food products, Goshgar Tahmazli, chairman of the Food Safety Agency, said at a public discussion of the draft “Law on Food Safety”, Trend reports.
Tahmazli said that this process shouldn’t be solely the prerogative of the state and the agency, in particular.
“We appealed to business entities and invited them to create private food laboratories,” he noted. “These laboratories must be internationally accredited. We, as an agency, will recognize their laboratory findings.”
“I would like to remind one negative fact that occurred in the process of exporting hazelnuts to Europe: 36 trucks with these products were returned because they contained aflatoxins above the norm, which is harmful to health,” he said. “This case was recorded before the agency appeared. After the agency started operating, no cases emerged, except for the case of damage to the export cargo due to the entrepreneur’s failure to comply with the transportation rules.”
The essence of early quality control is to protect the exporter from the possible material damage without the appropriate laboratory conclusion, he noted.
“In the end, this can seriously damage the image of a country and the country can be included in the list of risky countries,” he added. “I think that the Agency shouldn’t be a monopolist, we should have a competitor. Private laboratories testing the quality of products should be created. We invite entrepreneurs to join this process and are ready to provide all the support they need in this matter. In the end, the Agency can completely leave this business and focus on institutional issues.”
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