Yesterday, during the seminar on “Harmonization with EU standards and institution building of the State Inspectorate for Surveillance of RA Markets” funded by the European Union and held in the hall of “Alexandrapol” hotel belonging to former Mayor of Gyumri Vardan Ghukasyan, the resident technical advisor of the Twinning project, EU representative William Frank Harris informed that they had studied the market of Armenia, where a lot of problems were detected. Mr. Harris estimated that the major problem of the Armenian market is the safety. “We have done some shopping here and conducted an expertise of these products, and it turned out that the main problem is the safety. There is a general problem of safety of products in the Armenian market,”- said the European expert.
We asked to speak to specific examples, in response, the EU representative said that non-food products were studied with their project, they made certain purchases and sent them for testing, for example, electrical appliances, which turned out to be not safe, even tea kettles. Even coats were not safe. To note that this refers to imported goods. They have also studied the toys manufactured here, which are relatively unsafe. The journalists asked as to how effective it is to spend the EU’s money (the cost of the project is one million euro) on strengthening the institution of State Surveillance Inspection of RA markets when the President of Armenia has already expressed willingness to join the Customs Union.
“I, personally, cannot say anything on behalf of the European Union or on behalf of the Government of Armenia, at least, the project is underway, and I see grounds to continue this project. And since the project is underway, we will continue our work, which is to update the activities of the Inspection. Both, the people of Armenia and Armenia will benefit from what we are doing at the moment. To adopt the European values, it needs time, and I think that Armenia is capable of and may adopt European values and, in particular, the State Surveillance Inspection for market is able to adopt and implement the best practice of Europe,”- said Mr. Harris.
The journalists also asked for clarification from Ararat Sargsyan, deputy of the State Surveillance Inspection for market, who initially was recommending getting any information on their website. To the question of the journalists whether due to the observation of the European expert the kettle and household appliances are unsafe, the official clarified,- “In recent months, their employees have taken certain products for testing, the results of which we have not yet fully received. These products are sent for testing to our labs, as well as to England, now, perhaps, either the translation was a little bad, because I do not think that he would say that our market is in a very bad shape. There are standards that are a little different, ours and European, there are differences, in accordance to our standards, these products can be considered as non-hazardous, as for their standards they are considered, so to say, not so safe.”
What is the wrong translation of the word kettle? – asked the journalists in surprise. The Armenian official continued, – “To tell the truth, I first hear about it from you.”
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To note that in addition to electrical appliances, toys and many other goods, the cosmetic products imported to Armenia are not also safe, to which there is no public attention either.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
