World Standards Day is celebrated by many countries of the world in accordance with traditions set by International Standards Organisations like ISO, IEC & ITU.
The theme for this day varies each year and the theme of World Standards Day this year is "Standards connect the World" which is well chosen and shows global importance of standards. Standards are essential components for trade, commerce and diffusion of technology.
It is the reason that development of Metrology, Standards, Testing and Quality (MSTQ) infrastructure are necessary for industrial progress and prosperity of a country or a region.
The main objective of the PSQCA is to set up standards on quality and dimension, testing and assessment of industrial raw materials and finished products and implementation of Certification Marks Scheme.
The PSQCA has already developed about 5000 standards and directly adopted about 16000 international standards resulting in more than 21000 Pakistan Standards covering a wide range of products.
Besides voluntary certification of several products 46 items are covered under Compulsory Certification Marks Scheme. These include food items like Edible Oils, Banaspati, Biscuits, Bottled Drinking Water and common items like Electric Cables, Bulb, Tube Lights, Motorcycles and Auto-rickshaws.
The PSQCA has made significant efforts to enforce and improve the quality of these items.
The PSQCA, in collaboration with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Science & Technology hosted a workshop of Asia Co-operation Dialogue (ACD) countries on "Conceptual Framework for International Co-operation in the field of Standards among ACD countries" on 31st May & 1st June this year in Karachi. The ACD countries which participated in the workshop included Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, China, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka. The main objective of the workshop was to foster and facilitate trade within ACD countries by promoting co-operation on standards and conformity assessment, harmonisation of standards, establishment of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRA's) particularly after the implementation of WTO regime.
Among other things it was decided that the PSQCA would be a nodal point for co-operation in the field of standards among ACD countries.
In order to strengthen the PSQCA Laboratories as per ISO-17025 and recognition of our laboratories test reports internationally, recently collaboration with UNIDO has been initiated in terms of obtaining expertise and training under trade related technical assistance program of the European Union to minimise Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and boost economy under WTO agreements.
For up-gradation of the PSQCA laboratories and constructions of the PSQCA offices in Karachi Rs 230 million has been sanctioned by Ministry of Science & Technology in accordance with the policy of the present government to promote quality.
Out of this Rs 30 million will be funded by the PSQCA from its own resources. Standards Development Centre (SDC) of the PSQCA has already been strengthened to upgrade its facilities at a cost of Rs 23.5 million received from the MoST, Government of Pakistan. It may not be out of place to mention here that the PSQCA has been declared self financed from July 2003.
As per directives of the present government and under guidelines of Ministry of Science & Technology, the PSQCA is playing a dominant role in the economic and social development of Pakistan ensuring quality, safety and reliability of the products and services.
Comments
Comments are closed.