Jordan, Egypt officials talk food cooperation

The Director General of the Food and Drug Administration, Nizar Mheidat, and the Head of the Egyptian National Food Safety Authority, Tariq Houbi, Saturday discussed cooperation. According to a statement, the meeting between the two officials was held in Amman following the Jordanian-Egyptian Higher Committee's recommendations, which recently convened in Cairo. Mheidat affirmed the Administration's readiness to enhance cooperation in areas of common interest and its welcome for developing joint programmes and work mechanisms and exchanging technical expertise. In turn, Houbi discussed establishing a mechanism to exchange food monitoring results in the two countries, the risks incurred and the control and tracking mechanism. He noted the "importance" of an early warning system, the possibility of matching the standards approved in inspection based on international references and scientific foundations and concluding a memo to overcome obstacles facing the exchange of food products. The meeting focused on adopting certificates of origin for foodstuffs and freedom of sale certificates containing food ingredients issued by specialised authorities electronically and exchanging certificates of conformity for food commodities between the two countries. For her part, Mona Abboud, head of the Commercial Representation Office at the Egyptian Embassy in Amman, confirmed that the relations between the two countries are "complementary, as they have close and extended ties that have contributed to increasing bilateral trade exchange." Source: Jordan News Agency