Vista parcial do porto de Nacala, provincia de Nampula
Maputo, 25 Dec (AIM) – Mozambique has launched a new instrument for assessing the quality of products, in order to guarantee exports and imports within internationally accepted parameters.
This is a new phytosanitary certificate, which replaces the previous one, aims at improving certification methods in the light of World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations.
“The aim of the new certificate is to be able to indicate from the base what kind of cleaning, treatment and quality improvement methods have been carried out”, said recently, in Maputo, the Minister of Industry and Trade (MIC), Silvino Moreno, on the sidelines of the second Ordinary Session of the National Trade Facilitation Committee.
“The aim of the new phytosanitary certificate is for it to contain elements that make it possible to assess whether the products to be exported have the necessary quality”, he explained.
He added that products, especially plants and animals, over time, or when they are harvested, always have some impurities, which is why laboratory analyses are necessary.
According to Moreno, WTO member countries are prohibited from taking diseases from their food or agricultural products to other countries and the only way to avoid this is to use laboratories “and make sure that what we are exporting is in good condition.”
On the same occasion, he revealed that Mozambique has exported over 200,000 tonnes of pigeon peas to India and hopes to export the same amount in the near future.
With regard to price speculation, Moreno acknowledged that “there are attempts to increase prices in some cities, but our signal is there, promptly and rigidly, to prevent this from happening”.
(AIM)
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