This Monday, 6 November, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) began training staff from the National Institute for Standardisation and Quality (INNOQ) on better technical regulations in Maputo through the Promote Trade project.
This is a three-day training course (6, 7 and 13 November), the aim of which is to provide the beneficiaries with tools and knowledge on how to create regulations that promote the quality of national products so that they are competitive in the regional and European markets.
“Mozambique has been a member of the World Trade Organisation since 1995 and so the way we prepare our regulations and how we interact with other countries must be accompanied by rules, following the so-called good rules of regulation. In this area of trade, when regulations affect activity, it is recommended to notify the WTO so that others are aware of what is happening in the country, which is why we have to update them,” said INNOQ representative Geraldo Albasine.
He explained that a committee needs to be set up to prepare the regulations and analyse the instruments that can be prepared day by day at Mozambican level. “The training that began today and will end on the 13th aims to build capacity in good regulatory practices. Although they know about logistics, they also need to know about regulation so they know how it is done in terms of good practice and the aspects that others, at international level, require in order to prepare a regulation,” said Geraldo Albasine.
For his part, the general coordinator of the Promote Trade project at UNIDO, Zacarias Zandamela, said that it aims to guarantee an increase in exports. “Exports are made by companies and that’s why we’re focussing on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), because they have greater difficulty entering global markets, especially with regard to regulatory requirements,” he explained.
The Promove Comércio project is funded by the European Union (EU) and began in March 2020. It was supposed to end next year, but some activities have not yet been carried out, which means there may be some extension. It is implemented by UNIDO with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and also the private sector.
The project aims to create competitiveness in exports and came about as part of the economic partnership agreement between the EU and SADC (the region of which Mozambique is a part), with the aim of ensuring that the country can benefit from the partnership. The concept is to integrate the Mozambican economy into global markets, specifically the European market.
