On 27th of May, meat processors and exporters had the occasion to meet with representatives of ANSA, the Patronat of Enterprises from Meat Producing Industry (Patronatul Întreprinderilor Industriei Prelucrătoare de Carne PIIPC), Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Economy and European Union Delegation.
The goal of the event was to present the undertaken actions until today towards the exports of products of animal origin on the EU market and the backlogs that RM has in this regard.
The workshop was launched by Mr. Wicher Slagter, who reiterated the importance of aligning to the EU standards the meat processing industry, which involves important investments from economic agents and from the relevant authorities also. Mr. Slaghter reiterated that before a country is eligible for exports of products of animal origin, there is to be performed an evaluation from the inspection body of European Comission. Thereby the requirements for each category of products are specified in the IIIrd N 853/2004 Annex.
The ANSA Deputy Director, Mr. Grigore Porcescu has underlined that there have been elaborated guidebooks in order to facilitate the exports of meat, and other actions in order to face the outlined issues. Among the guidebooks elaborated by ANSA with the purpose of aligning the standards of meat processing, are:
- The guidebook concerning the performing of sanitary-veterinary expertise of red meat;
- The guidebook concerning the implementation of HACCP;
- The specific procedure of sampling etc.
EUHLPAM adviser, Mr. Lucian Boncea, came with the example of Romania in regards to solutions for the mentioned problems, in this way presenting the experience of processing units from Romania that have conformed with the EU requirements, which grew in number from 50 to 915, starting with 2004 till 2014.
Among the difficulties stated by the national producers were the bad quality meat present on the market and the lack of responsibility from the small producers, as well as the necessity to roughen the control from ANSA on the meat products imported in the country for processing purposes, disposing of waste in unauthorized places and the lack of processing units, unfair competition caused by companies that activate in unauthorized conditions etc.
The companies have required the responsible bodies to get implicated through assuring certain equal rules for big and small producers as well as through assuring a harsher control on the quality of imported meat in RM.
The workshop was organized in partnership with the Patronat of Enterprises from Meat Producing Industry, with the financial support from the EU financed project “Support to the DCFTA process in the Republic of Moldova.”
At debates participated 30 meat producing and processing companies, among which were Debut Sor SRL, SRL Pegas, SA Basarabia Nord, SRL Nivalli etc.