The companies that import agricultural products into Moldova from next week will be penalized if they do not present compliance and safety certificates that are issued in the country of origin of the goods. If these certificates are absent, the products will be stopped on the border, IPN reports.

Andrei Balan, of the National Food Safety Agency, told a news conference that the new provisions came into force in March, but the companies ignored them. That’s why there will be imposed penalties. In order to prevent the falsification of documents, the Agency will initiate cooperation agreements with the trading countries, with which it will exchange electronic certificates.

Earlier, there was only the phytosanitary certificate that was required for all the agricultural products. The compliance certificate was also obtained by companies, but it wasn’t attached to the importation documents. Now this thing is obligatory.

According to Andrei Balan, the inclusion of the safety certificate in the list of necessary documents will eliminate the discrepancy between the national and foreign producers as the national ones were until now obliged to present safety certificates when exporting goods. Such a condition wasn’t imposed on the companies importing goods into Moldova.

A number of businessmen said the procedure for obtaining these certificates is difficult and the sensitive goods are often compromised. The laboratory examination of a sample from a consignment costs about 400 lei. The companies bringing 20-30 consignments into the country will incur very high costs and this will affect the market prices.