Norway has pledged to help Vietnam on enhancing its testing capacity and certification processes for textile products, improve quality of electrical products in correlation with European standards, and also upgrade metrology facilities in some sectors.
On June 16, an agreement for Phase II of the Regional Project to support Trade and Market Access Capacity Building in the Mekong Region was clinched by Norwegian Ambassador to Vietnam Kjell Storlokken, Vice Minister of Science and Technology Bui Manh Hai, and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) representative Philippe Schotes in Hanoi.
The scheme will also help Vietnam strengthen its national testing capacity, implement the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles and improve the capacity of local offices in charge of recognizing assessing organizations.
The US$1.7 million second phase will be undertaken in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia through 2008.
The first phase of the project was conducted in the 2003-2005 period with a total cost of US$1 million.
