Three more quality labs at the Tripoli Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Tripoli and the North will expand its current Quality Control Center to include three additional labs, said Khaled Omari, lab manager.

The first lab will measure pesticide residues, the second to measure antibiotics, and the third for calibration.

“The new labs will bring the total QCC area to one thousand square meters, at a cost of $2 million,” said Omari.

The pesticides and antibiotics labs will test samples in fruits, vegetable, honey, and seafood. “Honey is on the blacklist of exports to the European Union. We used to send samples to Italy, which took more than ten days,” he said. These labs will help reduce the time needed to test honey to one day. The calibration lab will be used for to weigh gold. The labs will be fully operational within two years.

The QCC already has two labs for chemistry and microbiology. The lab, first opened in 2009 has since received international accreditation for 15 tests. It aims to raise the number of accredited tests to 50 by the month’s end.