Vietnam teams up with Netherlands, WB in food safety control
Vietnam seeks to enhance food safety management with support of the Netherlands and the World Bank (WB), announced the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on November 10.
At a ceremony to announce the memorandum of understanding on sustainable agricultural and food sector development, Vietnam expressed hope to increase cooperation with the Netherlands and the WB in evaluating risks of food safety.
Projects and activities will be launched under the cooperation to improve Vietnam’s food supply chain toward international standards of food safety.
Accordingly, it will build a food safety monitoring system based on risk evaluation, as well as improve food processing and quality of surveillance agencies.
An implementation plan based on recommendations from the World Bank will be formulated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Government of the Netherlands (through its Ministry of Economic Affairs), and the World Bank in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Steering Committee on Food Safety will take a leading role in kick-starting discussions on the implementation plan.
Food safety has been a concern in Vietnam over recent years. As at the end of June, the country had 73 cases of food poisoning with 1,592 victims. As many as 1,483 people were hospitalized and 16 died. During the first six months of this year, the country set up more than 23,400 delegations of inspectors to check more than 443,100 enterprises and discovered more than 81,000 violations.
Speaking at the ceremony, MARD Deputy Minister Vu Van Tam said that Vietnam has paid attention to food safety and given priority to agro-forestry-fishery products management.
The ministry will launch measures to improve food safety management in the coming years, raising productivity and quality for demand of domestic consumers and exports. To realize the target, in addition to the country’s efforts, the agricultural sector should make use of international support, the Deputy Minister added.
For her part, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Netherlands to Vietnam Pauline Eizema said the MoU aims to concretize cooperation between Vietnam and the Netherlands in food safety management, with the participation of the WB.