In these days, Jeddah municipality conducts an extensive research to identify the requirements for launching a microbiological and chemical laboratory for food products. "This SR 40 million project has been approved by His Excellency Secretary Eng. Adil Faqhih. It is going to be founded in the municipality" reported Dr. Mohammed Abduasalam, Secretary Advisor. He maintained that the lab will be concerned with examining and analyzing food produce such as beverages, sodas, legumes, meat, and fish, crustaceans, eggs and all kinds of canned foods. The lab has a food chemistry unit where there will be various tests such as ICP (Ionization Coupled Plasma), HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatograph), TLC (Thin layer Chromatograph), GC (Gas Chromatograph). Other equipment in this unit are Icp, hplc and n-analyzer. The unit will also incorporate an additional unit for food microbiology as well as many other units.

On the other hands, the municipality has put together an urban observatory program which consists of various mechanisms for monitoring, documenting, filing and producing evidence for urban growth. These data can be utilized for advanced census applications, and mechanical analyses by the use of the available geographical information.

Dr. Mohammed indicated that the prime goal of establishing the urban observatory project in Jeddah is to convert the relatively physical observations in the community into numerical facts which can be measured, compared and maintained, and thus, forms the backbone of local management.

Moreover, a number of private and governmental organizations and institutions participate in establishing and operating this project. The technical support for the project is provided by Arab Urban Development Institute and United Nations Development Program in Riyadh.

Source: Al Jazirah Newspaper