Yangon, Myanmar
Despite the promising potentials of Myanmar's agriculture and food sector, the industry is still in a nascent state to seize opportunities through compliance and conformities in rapidly transforming supply chains with increasing demands for safety and quality. On the other hand, private sector food producers in Myanmar, especially SMEs, are facing multiple challenges today amidst the rapidly changing operating environment.
Recognizing this urgency on World Food Safety Day 2023, Myanmar Innovative Life Sciences and Mekong Institute took the opportunity to gather key stakeholders in an event to provide a better understanding of food standards, highlight their importance in market systems, and brainstorm ways to catalyst the development of the environment that fosters better compliance of the standards.
The event started with a monthly Breakfast Briefing of MILS, which aims to provide attendees with helpful information on industry and food safety updates and networking opportunities very time-efficiently and navigate better in this rapidly changing and highly competitive environment.
After the Breakfast Briefing, Kyaw Thu Htet (CEO, MILS) had a welcome remark, followed by the opening remarks by Maria Theresa Medialdia, Director of Agricultural Development and Commercialization Department, Mekong Institute, and a keynote speech by Dr. Yuka Makino, FAO representative to Myanmar.
In addition, representative speakers from World Food Program, SUN Business Network Myanmar, and AYA Bank also shared knowledge about the importance of food standards in the supply chain, the current status of food standards in Myanmar, and practical financial support for agri-food SMEs, respectively.
After a tea break, a Panel discussion on Understanding Food Standards and Leveraging Them to Improve Market Access was discussed by a diverse group of panelists from private and private sectors. They shared their perspectives on understanding the food standards, their importance in supply chains, current status, and challenges Myanmar is facing, and explored ways to address them.
The video recording of the Breakfast Briefing and Panel Discussion is available on:
The feedback from participants was also collected to be able to develop the Food Safety Toolkit, especially for Myanmar food producer SMEs. Finally, The event was successfully closed with a remark and insight into how food safety is important for producing quality local products by an emerging entrepreneur. The entire program was conducted in the Myanmar language, and 80 participants from the CSO and private sectors joined both in person and online.
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