First ever Asia-Pac conformity push in Sri Lanka takes off in Colombo
View(s):Ushering international recognition for Sri Lanka’s conformity realm, the first ever Asia Pacific accreditation conference kicked off in Colombo on June 15, a media release issued by the Commerce and Industry Ministry stated.
“Under the purview of my Ministry, we have taken various measures to promote accreditations in Sri Lanka. This is done with a view to enhance living standards and even our exports. Sri Lanka has also issued 145 new ISO certificates and 14 international standards,” Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said in Colombo.
He was addressing the inauguration of the APLAC and PAC joint General Assembly Meeting on Monday in Colombo. The second APLAC and PAC joint General Assembly Meeting to be held ever, the event also celebrates the 20th anniversary of PAC. The event signalled the formal launch of the nine day-long event with host government’s backing. More than 170 international delegates from 35 economies attended the Colombo event. Among the nine-day agenda items were technical and training sessions (such as on ISO/IEC 17020), APLAC/PAC general training sessions, host economy seminars, peer evaluator’s workshops and a technical visit, it was stated.
The minister noted that currently, in Sri Lanka 16 national medical laboratories are already SLAB accredited while 10 more applications were under consideration. “We believe that accreditation helps competitiveness of Sri Lankan products in international markets and a survey is also now underway to exploit new and emerging markets for Sri Lankan products. SLAB has been actively engaged in seeking mutual recognition arrangements with regional and international bodies on testing calibration and certification,” it was stated.
APLAC has the international acceptance as the largest regional accreditation cooperation effort, and is growing strongly. As a regional body we are becoming more and more important in the Asia Pacific’s international trade” said Nigel Jou (APLAC Chairman) addressing the event, and added: “We now have 424 member institutions representing 26 economies. We were invited by WTO Technical Barriers to Trade team to talk about how accreditation and conformity assessment procedures addressed the trade issues in the region.”
In 2013, 1.56 million ISO standards certifications were issued across 95 countries.