A meeting of the working group of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation was held in Moscow

On 13 December, a meeting of the working group on standardization and compliance issues of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation was held in the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation.

The bilateral meeting was organized in an expanded format. The Russian Federation was represented by Minpromtorg of Russia, the Federal Service for Accreditation, RF Rosselkhoznadzor, the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology, the Academy of Metrology and Certification Standardization, the National Institute of Accreditation, the State Institute of Drugs and Good Practices, Roskachestvo, the NP CIC CIS Association. Finland was represented at the meeting by speakers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labor and Economic Development, the Russian Embassy in Finland, the National Metrology Center MIKES, the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira, as well as by representatives of the Russian-Finnish business community.

The meeting was opened by the Chairman of the working group from the Russian Federation side, Mr. David Merabovich Gogotishvili, and the Chairman of the working group from the Finland side, Mr. Ilkka Saarinen. Then, there were several presentations about cooperation in education and information provision through organization of topical workshops on standardization and confirmation of compliance, as well as about the issues of advanced training of experts in standardization. The prospects of collaboration of representatives of metrology agencies and institutions aimed at scientific and technical cooperation in metrology were also discussed. Among possibilities for the future, the issues of cooperation between the Finnish Medicines Agency (FIMEA) and the Federal Service for Accreditation in good laboratory practice (GLP) and the option of conducting inspections of Russian GLP-laboratories by the Finnish supervisory agency were considered.

Representatives of the State Institute of Drugs and Good Practices of Minpromtorg of Russia negotiated with the Finnish side the possibility to conclude a Memorandum on cooperation with the national regulatory authority under the Finnish Ministry of Social Welfare and Healthcare – FIMEA (Finnish Medicines Agency), as well as the possibility of conducting joint training inspections within educational activities and harmonization of approaches to carrying-out inspections.