World Standards Day: Messages from Taufique Ali Abbasi Director General(PSQCA)

The world standards day is being celebrated on14th October every year by the member countries of International Standards Organization (ISO), International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), SIMIC, SARSO and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with a view to create awareness about the importance of international standards. The Theme of World Standards Day, this year is “SHARED VISION FOR A BETTER WORLD”. Standards create a common language, enabling manufacturer and supplier to communicate confidently and clearly with engineers, designers and stakeholders anywhere in the world.

The standards not only underpin the quality of product and services but also provide for their interchangeability, interoperability, safety and environmental friendliness. Conformance to the international standards, provide a level playing field for a product to perform in the global market irrespective of country of origin. Adherence to the standard therefore, generates confidence both in the producer and the consumer in competitive world market. Importance of international standards could be better understood if we visualize today world without standards. In such a scenario, the internet simply would not function thousands of systems dependent on information and communication technologies would faultier or fail. This includes the systems placed in operation for governance, health care, air traffic control and emergency services.

The PSQCA is endeavoring to bring awareness of the importance of standards among our producers of goods and services by emphasizing that in today global economy conformance to standards laying down the parameters of quality compatibility and management standards can only provide them confidence that their product would fairly trade without any technical barriers, and that only the cost of production provides competitive edge.

Being a National Standards Body, PSQCA is responsible for promulgating Pakistan Standards developed by the technical experts of more than 197 technical committees of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority.

PSQCA is playing a significant role in economic development of Pakistan. Pakistan standards are continuously growing (i.e., more adoption of international standards as Pakistan Standards) with international standardization activities for all sectors of industries Besides having developed 24008 national standards and adoption of 9322 ISO and 6372 IEC standards. The importance of standards is increased after 18th amendment, PSQCA has harmonized food standards for ease of doing business in interprovincial trade as well as international trade facilitation. We deal with all aspects of quality infrastructure including standardization, legal metrology standards and conformity assessment at the national level. Through this message I assure that PSQCA is committed to provide information on standards to all industries for their quality improvement.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024