OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2012. The Economics Ministry and the EU delegation to Moldova spoke about the launch of a new Twinning project titled "Strengthening the Capacity of the Accreditation Centre in Conformity Assessment of Products" during a news conference. The project's beneficiary is Moldova's Accreditation Centre in Conformity Assessment of Products.

According to the Economics Ministry's information and press relations service, the project's founders are the Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN) in partnership with the Swedish Board for Accreditation and Conformity Assessment (SWEDAC).

"We thank the EU for the support provided to Moldova in creating a system of accreditation, which will be in line with the international requests. It will strengthen the credibility of the national accreditation system at the foreign level and will facilitate the Moldovan goods' export to the European market", Deputy Economics Minister Octavian Calmic said.

A representative of the EU delegation to Chisinau, Kaido Sirel, said that eight Twinning projects are under development. "These projects are set to prepare Moldova's economy for the next trade regime with the EU, named Moldova-EU Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area", Sirel noted.

The project's goal is to prepare the institution for signing the Bilateral Agreement of European Cooperation for Accreditation and to set conditions for the international recognition of the attempts' results, standard certificates, inspection reports and certificates of conformity. At the same time, the project is aimed at improving Moldova's trade competitiveness and adjusting the infrastructure of quality with the European and international standards. The project is amounted to 1 million euros, with a two-year implementation period.

The EU Twinning programme represents an administrative cooperation instrument, meant to back the candidate countries and the neighbouring states of the EU. It is set to help the beneficiary countries develop modern and efficient administrations with organisations, human resources and managerial skills needed to implement the EU Acquis.