Experts of the Swedish Research Council for Agricultural Sciences will offer assistance to the National Food Safety Agency in working out the internal documents, agreeing inspection procedures and organizing training sessions for its employees, IPN reports.

The technical assistance project “Strengthening capacities in the food safety area” will be implemented during 2017-2019 and is financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The project has a budget of 21 million Swedish kronas (about €2m).

In the project launch, National Food Safe Agency director Gheorghe Gaberi said they aim to learn from the Swedish Government’s experience in implementing modern food safety surveillance technologies. He noted that the Agency is responsible for the implementation of the food safety legislation and this technical assistance project will help modernize the watchdog.

Sweden’s Ambassador to Moldova Signe Burgstaller said the 21 million Swedish kronas is intended for improving the functional and institutional capacities of the National Food Safe Agency so that this improves the quality of its services and meets the EU standards. This way Moldova’s European integration efforts are also supported.

During the next two years, Moldova will have to transpose about 200 EU directives related to food safety to the national legislation.