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Food, environment lab in RAK soon

RAS AL KHAIMAH — The RAK Municipality (RM) is putting final touches to a new state-of-the-art food and environment laboratory in the Al Qisaidat area, near Gulf Cinema.

“It is a part and parcel of our efforts to enhance the municipal services and to keep with the economic and social boom that marks all the emirate’s sectors,” Mubarek Al Shamsi, Director-General of RAK Municipality, told Khaleej Times.

The new laboratory comes as a realisation of the directives of Shaikh Saud bin Saqer Al Qasimi, RAK Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler, who has spared no efforts to develop the emirate’s infrastructures and facilities.

“It will also help the Public Health and Environment Protection Section (Pheps) of the RM to enhance its performance and services,” Al Shamsi said.

Till now, the Pheps has carried out food and environment analysis in the laboratories of the RAK-based Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries Company (Julphar) or that of the Sharjah or Dubai municipalities, which was time consuming and require a lot of effort and money.

The new laboratory would also help municipal food inspectors to identify cases of contaminated food, food ingredients and how they conformed to public health standards. The Pheps confiscate on almost a daily basis large quantities of contaminated food from the emirate’s local markets and food outlets.

The new laboratory would also “help private industries to carry laboratory analysis as quickly as possible without delay”.

RAK is witnessing a huge industrial boom with a number of producers of international food brands setting up branches in its new industrial zones. The laboratory will conduct chemical, physical, radiological as well as microbiological analysis. The project has been divided into two phases.

“The first one which will be ready by the coming year will feature food analysis. The second one, which will be completed by the year 2007, includes environmental tests,” Al Shamsi said.

The laboratory would be manned by highly qualified experts and would be provided with the most up-to-date equipment. “We have thoroughly studied similar projects in Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi to benefit from their expertise and to avoid their shortcomings so as to begin from where they stopped,” he said.