The Ministry of Agriculture’s Deputy State Secretary for International Relations Katalin Tóth held discussions with the Moldovan Parliament’s Friendship Group on Wednesday morning in Budapest.
The main topics of professional discussion included the successful Hungarian school milk and school fruit programmes, which the Moldovan party would like to transpose into its own public catering system.
The Moldovan delegation expressed great interest in the structure of Hungary’s food safety institution system, in addition to asking questions with relation to the practical realisation of maintaining Hungarian agriculture’s GMO-free status. After presenting the various sectors, Ms. Tóth indicated that Hungary is ready to share its experiences with relation to all professional issues, thus contributing to Moldova’s successful preparations for EU membership.
The Deputy State Secretary drew her negotiating partners’ attention to the fact that the Ministry is playing an important role in the realisation of EU-funded Twinning ad Taiex programmes, and Hungarian experts are actively participating in the management of these cooperation programmes in many locations, including in the Western Balkans and Central Asia.
During the meeting, the head of the Moldovan delegation stressed that the privatisation process currently underway in the country provides many opportunities for Hungarian agriculture and food industry enterprises and investors, in view of which the diplomat would also like an agricultural businesspersons’ meeting to be held during Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas’s planned visit to Chișinău in June of this year.
At the meeting, Ms. Tóth highlighted the fact that cooperation between Hungary and Moldova is also close within the framework of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Via the FAO, Hungary is financing projects aimed at developing the irrigation technologies of small farms and the transfer of modern irrigation technologies. In addition, Hungary has already launched its scholarship programme for 2017-2018, which is supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture, and which enables students from developing countries, including Moldova, to study at Hungarian agrarian universities.
The Moldovan Parliament Agricultural Committee’s Friendship Group arrived in Hungary for a three-day official visit on 10 April.