Food Safety (phase II) Project

Assistance to the Lebanese Meat and Milk-Processing Sectors in their Efforts to Gain Increased Market Access

The project continues the ongoing activities within the IP for Lebanon by upgrading and streamlining the legal and institutional support framework for trade facilitation and improved market access.

It continues the work and the activities carried out within the project "Strengthening Human and Institutional Capacity for Upgrading Safety, Quality and standards of Lebanese SMEs with Pilot Application to Tahina and Halawa Manufacturers" by dealing with two new supply-chains: the meat and milk processing sectors.

Following to the request of the Minister of the Economy and Trade for the extension of the project until the end of 2009 for the completion of the planned activities which was approved by PAC in April 2008, the activities of the project were re-launched in July 2008.

Major Achievements:

In its first phase, some activities have been undertaken concerning the rehabilitation of the food sector in Lebanon, public awareness and capacity building, the development of the food safety programmes and the establishment of a network among Arab countries on the issues of quality, food safety and inter-Arab trade:

• Food law was approved by the Council of Ministers and presented to parliament for ratification.
• Training for more than 3000 food industrialists were conducted
• National awareness event "National Food Safety Day" has been organized.
• Regional awareness event "Arab Quality and Food Safety Conference" took place in June 2006 which was pursued by a follow up meeting in November 2007.