DOHA: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) participated in the Arab Regional Forum on Voluntary Third-Party Assurance Approach and Mechanisms in the Arab Region, which was held in the Jordanian capital city of Amman.
Head of the MOPH's Ports Health and Food Control Section Khalid Al Sulaiti and Head of the Environmental Health Section in the Food Safety Department Mubarak Al Nuaimi represented the ministry in the forum.
The session on food safety, chaired by Al Sulaiti as head of the Arab Group for Food Safety, reviewed the new approach to controlling imported and local food by third parties assigned for this mission by the official regulatory authorities and its positive impacts on facilitating procedures and enhancing the required level of food safety when the necessary regulations are guaranteed.
Al Sulaiti stressed the importance of Qatar's participation in such forums that cope with the latest developments in food control methods and their impacts on the quality and accuracy of control operations.
Al Nuaimi hailed the participation in the forum as highly significant given the many important information and data beneficial for plans and projects that the Food Safety and Environmental Health Department is working on to develop its work mechanisms, in line with the optimum practical practices in this respect.
The forum raised many technical queries about the voluntary third-party assurance approach and mechanisms and lessons learned from the experiences of the countries that implemented them within their systems including the positive impacts and challenges they faced.
The forum came in response to a call from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido) in a bid to raise awareness of the voluntary third-party assurance approach and mechanisms in the Arab region, based on the guidelines of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which outlined the requirements for implementing this approach.
