Kathmandu, Aug. 10:
The government is
making preparations to establish an Accreditation Board and sectoral
accreditation bodies to enhance trade competency and ensure international
standards in Nepal-made products.
Once the board is
established, it will issue recognition to the accreditation bodies of various
sectors, such as food, medical, textile and metal. The accreditation bodies
will provide licenses to the government and private sector laboratories and
monitor their quality.
“There will be a three-layer structure. The board will be a supreme
national body, which will regulate the entire accreditation process and bodies.
The accreditation bodies will be responsible for managing the commercial lab
market,” said Deepak Gyawali, Director of the Nepal Bureau of Standard and
Meteorology (NBSM).
The business community has long been demanding quality labs and product
certification system of international standards.
Gyawali said that the institutions in the offing would be linked to the
international market through the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) at the
global, Asian and regional levels.
According to the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation
(ILAC), accreditation is a means of determining the technical competence of
testing, calibration and medical laboratories to perform specific types of
testing, measurement and calibration.
The accreditation gives formal recognition to the laboratories in the
country, and provides the means for the buyers, importers and customers in and
out of the country to identify the quality of the product.
“It will provide marketing
advantage to the industrialists since the products certified by the accredited
labs will be allowed in the international markets without any constraints,”
said Bijendra Man Shrestha, a trade expert.
President of the
Federation of Handicraft Association (FHAN) Dharma Raj Shakya said that many
export-oriented manufacturing industries urgently need an accreditation lab.
In the absence of such
labs, Nepali exporters, from silver jewellery to agricultural goods like
tomatoes and ginger, are continuously troubled. Quality testing of Nepali
products in the internationally accredited lab has become one of the major
trade barriers for the agricultural products and processed food items.
The NBSM has prepared a
draft of the Accreditation Act and sent it to the Ministry of Industry,
Commerce and Supplies (MoICS). Currently, the draft is at the Ministry of Law
for review.
However, the
establishment of the accreditation board and bodies could be delayed as the
draft is not a priority of the government. The NBSM had sent the draft to the
MoICS about five years ago, but it has not been tabled in the parliament yet.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 11 August 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment