World Standards Day is being celebrated to mark the birth of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), which held its first meeting in London on October 14, 1946, and from an initial roster of 25 countries, ISO (based in Geneva, Switzerland) now has 123 member nations and has evolved into the global clearing house for all standards activities.
It is indeed a matter of immense pleasure for Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) being the National Standards Body to take an active part in the World Standards Day by publishing special Supplements in the national and regional newspapers to create quality consciousness and raise the level of awareness about the requirements and impact of standards in our daily life.
The principle objective of standardisation is to supply the markets with high quality reliable products. The process of standardisation is usually costly and time-consuming, but also indispensable and vital. Conformity Assessment provides confidence to users that the requirements applicable to products, services and systems have been met. Such confidence, in turn, directly contributes to the market acceptance of those products, services and system standardisation is as such one of the most rapidly progressing areas in the economy of any country. The awareness on standardisation at the governmental and private sector level is a key element towards sustainable development.
The improvement of the quality of goods and services and the promotion of best management practices is equally important. For proactive small business owners and managers who wish to identify potential opportunities that international standards may hold for their business, keeping abreast of development in ITU, the IEC and ISO is key to seizing market trends and opportunities. Governments and trade associations in a number of countries have also launched standards related initiatives for small businesses.
It is a day to pay tribute to the collective and collaborative efforts of the experts' world wide, leading to develop the voluntary technical agreements which are published as International and National standards. Like other countries the member bodies of ISO, IEC and ITU, PSQCA is celebrating the World Standards Day by committing itself for improvement of standardisation and quality culture in the country.
The theme of World Standards Day this year is "Standards: Big benefits for small business". It is a great news for the SMEs that the ISO Committee on Conformity (CASCO) is working hard on set of International standards and guides which aim to active the objective of one standard, one test, one conformity assessment for products or services (1+1+1) to be accepted everywhere. It has great relevance for the country's entrepreneurs in general and for the organisation responsible for standardisation activities of business in particular. I am sure that the theme will help in promoting and improving quality products for domestic consumers as well as for people abroad by adopting standardisation and quality control systems in trade and industry. Standards are indicators of quality, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability at an economical cost. standards provide "a level playing field" for all competitors in regional and global markets. In order to compete in global trade, standards must be maintained so that entrepreneurs are free to compete in anywhere in the global market.
The PSQCA has recently established a Consumer Liaison Office to co-ordinate with the national/international consumers Associations for standardisation and consumers affairs. Pakistan Certification Body (PCB) is being established under the aegis of PSQCA to overcome the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) Barriers to facilitate the local manufactures in International trade.
The PCB will mainly focus on providing QMS Certification to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector as well as the other industry of Pakistan with a view to provide sound economic and business principles. The PSQCA also plans to establish the National Enquiry Point (NEP) very soon as a pre-requisite of the WTO/TBT agreement which will be on-line service to the importers and exporters.
In order to up-grade and undertake modernisation of the PSQCA laboratories and construction of PSQCA Offices a multi-stories building of PSQCA Office Complex is under construction in the middle of the Karachi city at the cost of Rs 180 million and the project will be completed in March 2007. The Complex Laboratory will be equipped with state-of-the-art machinery and equipments would provide testing facilities to the manufacturers of all indigenous industrial articles/products in the country so that the requirements of national and international trade are adequately covered.
On this "World Standards Day", the PSQCA commits itself to meet the future challenges by utilising all the available resources and capabilities. PSQCA being the National Standards Body intends to play a proactive role to protect not only the consumers' rights but is ready to facilitate the flourishing business of industrial sector to compete in the global market on the basis of standards products.