EU-funded “Cambodia Programme for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in the Fisheries Sector: Capture component” (CAPFish-Capture), implemented by UNIDO in Cambodia, achieved a great success in attaining accreditation of Laboratory of Environment and Food Safety (LEFS) of Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC). This achievement was the result of continued technical support to IPC after the official partnership agreement signed between both parties. The accreditation was officially awarded by the International Accreditation Service (IAS) on 6 September 2022. IAS is an internationally recognized accreditation body which maintains signatory under Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC), International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). The certificate of accreditation with the scope can be found on IAS website.

The accreditation to this lab will help Cambodia in achieving national and international recognition of test results and so the quality and safety of fishery products. This also allows Cambodia to improve its exports of processed agricultural products, including fishery products to other potential importing countries, particularly ASEAN, China and the EU. Currently, such accredited testing facilities in the country are quite limited and the Kingdom depends heavily on the accredited laboratories in the neighboring countries for food testing, which is both time consuming and costing.

‘‘The IPC wishes to thank UNIDO and EU via CAPFish-Capture: Post harvest Fisheries Development project, for their continuous technical assistance supports during this accreditation process. It is another step of IPC’s goal to improve the quality of laboratory services in order to ensure the results accuracy for clients. Accreditation of such a laboratory will be useful to serve the industry in Cambodia including food and fishery businesses,’’ IPC emphasized the advantages of the accreditation for its clients particularly Cambodia in its recent public announcement.