UNIDO’s Deputy DG in town

Taizo Nishikawa, the Deputy to the Director-General of UNIDO, is be in Colombo on an official visit to kick off the Sri Lanka’s first-ever food certification firm as well as participate at the Sri Lanka Expo 2012.

Nishikawa will witness the MoU signing between Ind-Expo Certification Ltd. and Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) on Wednesday at Taj Samudra, Colombo. He has served as the Deputy Director-General Commerce and Information Policy Bureau, METI, since November 2005.

“The non-profit firm is a collaborative effort between Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) and the National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) supported by UNIDO under my Ministry’s auspices,” Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said.

The UNIDO facilitated project aims to promote food safety within the chain of tourist hotels in Sri Lanka and the non-profit firm Ind-Expo Certification jointly with Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) will implement the food safety inspection and grading system to assure food safety to the customers.

Ind-Expo Certification is a non profit, public certification and training organisation established by the CNCI and the NCE of Sri Lanka as its partners. It is supported by the UNIDO under its project ‘Strengthening the International Certification Capacity in Sri Lanka’ (Integrated Industrial Development Support Program Phase 11) with the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Ind-Expo also operates a ‘Crowns Scheme for Food Hygiene,’ where food outlets, restaurants and hotels are assessed for hygienic conditions and awards crowns depending on their hygienic conditions. The aim of this program is to safeguard the local consumers and also to facilitate the export market.

This program has been developed on par with similar programs in operation in developed countries and first implementation was in the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area with the support of the Health Department of the CMC. This will be extended to the Kotte Municipal and Dehiwala-Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council areas in the near future.