4^th of July 2016 : The kick –off meeting for the “Restructuring and Strengthening of the Food Safety and Veterinary Laboratory Network in Albania” project took place in Tirana, Albania, signifying the launch of the 36 months project led by PLANET. 

The kick of meeting, chaired by Manol Simo, General Director of The Central Finance and Contracting Unit (CFCU) within the Albanian Ministry of Finance was attended by representatives of the EU delegation and project beneficiaries, namely the Albanian Ministry of Agriculture and the Food Safety and Veterinary Institute (FSVI).

The overall objective of the project is to support the Albanian administrative capacities in ensuring improved levels of food safety over the whole food chain. To serve this objective the project will work on the development of a cost-efficient laboratory network capable of providing reliable and timely information on the safety of marketed food and animal health, while enhancing  the capacity of the laboratory network to carry out monitoring and analysis of food and feed products with specific reference in the fields of pesticide residues monitoring, microbiological diagnostics in food and feed, food quality standards, animal diseases, in accordance with the improved standards.

The project is implemented by an international consortium led by PLANET, with the participation of Prysma, Evoluxer, Sarga and UCM.