Industrial competitiveness through quality

By Shaukat Hussain
The NEWS

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is an international organisation established to supervise and liberalise international trade. WTO’s function is to ensure that trade between different countries flows as freely as possible, without any barriers.

The three technical partners, ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) have formed a strategic relationship with the WTO, to promote a free and fair global trading system. The political agreements reached within the structure of the WTO require reinforcement by technical agreements. ISO, IEC and ITU, as the three principal organisations in international standardisation have the complementary scope, the framework, the expertise and the experience to provide this technical support which is called ‘quality infrastructure or technical infrastructure,’ which leads towards global market growth.

The WTO since its existence in January 1995 imposes technical barriers to trade (TBT), to ensure that technical negotiations and standards, as well as testing and certification procedures, do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. However, the agreement also recognises countries’ rights to adopt the standards they consider appropriate, for example, for human, animal or plant life, for the protection of the environment or to meet other consumer interests. In order to ensure safe production of food and animal products, a separate agreement on food safety and animal and plant health standards, the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement (SPS) sets out some basic rules. It allows countries to set their own standards, but it also says that regulations must be based on science. They should be applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant life/health. Both these agreements of TBT and SPS rely upon efficient functioning of the technical infrastructure, to support the exchange of products worldwide. Therefore, metrology, standards, testing and quality through recognised accreditation system are essential elements of technical infrastructure. Quality infrastructure refers to all aspects of metrology, standardisation, testing, and quality management (MSTQ) or standardisation, quality assurance, accreditation and metrology (SQAM).

In the quality infrastructure system, accreditation plays a very vital role. It is a formal confirmation that a body is competent enough to perform certain tasks. It builds confidence in the work of testing laboratories, certification and inspection bodies, and facilitates mutual recognition of certificates, in addition to promotion of trade. The Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) was initiated in 1992 as a forum for laboratory accreditation bodies in the Asia Pacific region. Its primary aim was to establish, develop and expand a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA) among accreditation bodies in the region. The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) is an international cooperation of laboratory and inspection accreditation bodies formed to help remove technical barriers to trade. The ultimate aim of the ILAC arrangement is the increased use and acceptance by industry, as well as regulators of the results from accredited laboratories and inspection bodies, including results from laboratories in other countries. In this way, the free-trade goal of 'product tested once and accepted everywhere' can be realised. The International Accreditation Forum, Inc. (IAF) is the world association of conformity assessment accreditation bodies and other bodies interested in conformity assessment in the fields of management systems, products, services, personnel and other similar programmes of conformity assessment. Its primary function is to develop a worldwide program of conformity assessment, which reduces risks for businesses and its customers by assuring them that accredited certificates may be relied upon. The achievement of this MRA is not an easy task. There are only two accreditation bodies in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, four in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries, and only fifty one countries have this status in the world. Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) achieved this status on 21st May 2009. In addition to this, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) has the entire essential quality infrastructure, which is necessary for competitiveness of industrial products. The infrastructure includes institutions like the National Physical and Standards Laboratories (NPSL) to provide accredited metrology services to industry and testing laboratories, Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) to formulate and disseminate standards for the local industry and other stakeholders, and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) to provide internationally recognised testing services to the industry, regulators and consumers.

Though the impact of quality infrastructure seems invisible, it is however imperative because without it the world economy cannot possibly move forward. Quality infrastructure is necessary for eliminating technical barriers to trade. It thus plays a key role in integrating the trading partner countries into the international trade system.



The appropriate operation of quality infrastructure ensures benefits to various stakeholders as given below:

Producers

(a) Helps to demonstrate conformity of their products according to the requirements of the relevant standards.

(b) Provides a marketing tool to the business industry.

(c) Assist in overcoming technical barriers to trade by fulfilling the regulatory requirements of the importing country.

(d)Reduces product liability, if applicable in the intended country.

(e) Increases the confidence of industrialists through an assurance to produce high quality products.



Regulators

(a) Provides an assurance to regulators and government departments that they are using reliable testing, certification and inspection services.

(b) The products in the market are assumed to be tested by competent institutions of quality infrastructure. Therefore regulators have to select very few samples and it reduces the cost of market surveillance.

(c) Public, private and multinational companies can establish testing and inspection organisations duly verified by the national quality infrastructure. It reduces the burden on the government sector to establish laboratories and inspection bodies, and it serves as a de-regulation tool as well.



Consumers

(a) If the product has been tested by a competent institution of quality infrastructure, then it reduces the risk of it being of poor quality, hence quality Infrastructure is the source of a reliable service.

(b) The product purchased by consumers is worth the money and it is assured to be of top notch quality.

In order to provide awareness and training on technical quality matters, there is no such recognised institution in Pakistan. For this, certain steps should be taken, such as to start training courses in universities on quality infrastructure related activities in consultation with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). A training program for the interpretation and implementation of specific international agreements, like SPS, TBT and its linkage with quality infrastructure may be introduced at the university level in consultation with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Ministry of Science and Technology. Public sector universities should be encouraged to launch laboratory proficiency testing programs in Pakistan. At this particular time period, even a single accredited laboratory scheme would be very helpful. A pool of trainers and consultants should be prepared. Last but not the least, there is a dire need to develop a strong linkage between the industries and quality infrastructure institutions so that our industries may benefit from the worldwide recognised quality infrastructure, which would definitely provide them a competitive edge in the global market.