Ambitious plan to restructure Uzbek food safety for WTO
An encompassing venture to restructure Uzbekistan’s food safety testing system is underway with help of the International Trade Centre (ITC). The goal is to align the system with international standards for when the country joins the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The testing of food safety in Uzbekistan is being done by a wide network of laboratories across the country that report to different ministries and departments. This holds the risk of duplication and wasting of resources.
The Committee of Sanitary Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health (San-Epid committee) – the custodian of the national food safety system – decided to optimize the system to eliminate duplication and ensure optimal use of funds and other resources.
The committee asked ITC in 2024 to help examine the elaborate network of laboratories to rationalize it. The goal was to identify the three most important laboratories, and to upgrade them to the international standard known as ISO/IEC 17025:2017.
As part of the process, the quality management systems of the selected laboratories are being finetuned. This also means advanced training for technical staff on analytical methods for the test parameters, using the international standard protocols.
Field visit and advanced training
The laboratories were assessed through a survey in the second half of 2024. This was followed by a field visit in October 2024 to assess gaps against the international requirements for laboratory management systems. Technicians were then trained in Tashkent on how to comply to meet international accreditation. Their skills were finetuned on record keeping and documentation, testing protocols, and standard operating procedures.
Another seminar was held on 4 and 5 February 2025 on advanced laboratory quality management. The training focused on method validation, sampling and uncertainty measurement as part of the laboratory quality management system.
The training provided a theoretical grounding and then focused on practical laboratory work to ensure optimal take-up.
Thirty-seven technicians were trained to the international laboratory quality management system standard as well as to the international test protocols on microbiological, pesticide and aflatoxin parameters in food.
The work on the food safety system is supported under the EU project Facilitating the process of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO.
