The objective of World Standards Day being celebrated on 14th October, 2006 reminds us about the increasing importance of global standardisation in the world economy and to promote the role of standards in helping meet the needs of business, industry, government and consumers world-wide.
The theme of world standard day for the year 2006 is "Standards: Big benefits for small business". The theme recognises that a significant share of the world's business can be described as small to medium sized.
Small business could claim to be the world's biggest business in totality. It is estimated that more than 95 percent of the world's business are small to medium sized. Thus the benefits of international standards would provide as many benefits for small businesses as they do for global enterprises, governments and society at large.
The application of standards and conformity assessment would benefit small businesses by lowering their manufacturing cost and also raise the level of confidence between buyers and sellers. Moreover, adaptation of these management standards would help small businesses to foster development of global market for goods and services.
The Government of Pakistan established Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) as a national standards body which is committed to play its multi-dimensional role of enhancing the competitiveness of small business and larger counterparts for the optimum benefits of the entrepreneurs, consumers and the country as a whole. PSQCA recently has modernised its laboratories in Karachi and Lahore to facilitate the manufacturers all over the country for testing products according to Pakistan Standards, conform to International Standards, so as to meet the challenges of WTO.
PSQCA has also made significant efforts to ensure safe, wholesome and un-adulterated commodities to the consumers by regularly monitoring the products and also creating public awareness through advertisement in newspapers, hoardings, seminars, symposia; conferences. Recently, PSQCA has established a toll free telephone facility 0800-80000 for better interaction with the stakeholders in order to facilitate quality conscious and skeptical consumers.
I wish Pakistan Standards & Quality Control Authority a great success in celebrating the World Standards Day and appreciate its efforts towards increasing the awareness of quality among the people of Pakistan.