Japan helps Vietnam improve control of food safety
JICA signed a grant agreement with Vietnam on October 17 to provide over 1.2 billion JPY for a project to enhance laboratory capacity of the Reference Testing and Agrifood Quality Consultancy (RETAQ) Centre, helping Vietnam better ensure safety of agricultural and fishery products as food.
Hanoi (VNA) – The Japan International CooperationAgency (JICA) signed a grant agreement with Vietnam on October 17 to provide over 1.2 billion JPY (over 11 million USD) for a project to enhance laboratory capacity of the Reference Testing and Agrifood Quality Consultancy(RETAQ) Centre, helping Vietnam better ensure safety of agricultural and fishery products as food.
RETAQis under the management of the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality AssuranceDepartment of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Under this project, RETAQwill be provided with equipment needed to build an inspection systemfor ensuring the safety of agrifood along with facilities for effectively usingthat equipment with the aim of expanding the food inspection system andimproving the testing capacity.
JICA will also provideRETAQ with consultation on food safety policies, and assist the centre inimproving the capacity of the food safety monitoring system for agricultural andfishery products.
It is expected that this project will ensure agrifood safetyin Vietnam and advance implementation of WTO’s Sanitary and PhytosanitaryMeasures (SPS) Agreement./.
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Consumers shop at a supermarket (Photo: VNA) 
