Product conformity, certification: EDB's consultation with stakeholders begins

The Engineering Development Board (EDB) has started consultation on product conformity and standard certification for local industry to meet international standards.

These issues were discussed at a meeting presided over by the chief executive officer, EDB with all the stakeholders, including the representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (NEECA), the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the National Productivity Organization (NPO), the National Institute of Electronics (NIE), and the Ignite-National Technology Fund (NTF) .

The objective of the meeting was aimed at evaluating the prevailing situation in the context of domestically available facilities at competitive prices to local engineering industry rather than having to get comparatively costly and time-consuming facilities from overseas.

Briefing the participants, the CEO-EDB said that the EDB was mandated to look after capacity building of the engineering sector and integrating it with the global supply chain and markets, to make it the driving force for economic growth.

He added that the EDB was undertaking competitive/efficiency improvement and export enhancement exercise to collect proposals from engineering industry to promote the present government's vision of "Make in Pakistan".

The CEO was of the view that stakeholders of export potential sectors including sanitary fittings and ceramics, power equipment, household utensils and cutlery, auto industry, home appliances and casting forging etc. have identified that domestic engineering goods exporters, which lose orders just because of the reasons that local industry does not fulfill international requirements of product testing, certification, and inspections.

The general manager (SDG), EDB highlighted that the engineering sector in Pakistan had very low share in international trade. Further, Pakistani companies do not meet product conformity of certification standards even with regional countries such as South Africa, Europe, the Gulf countries, and our local industry was suffering.

He said, Pakistan had signed FTA with China and was also working on other FTAs including with Turkey and Thailand in the future and a number of our industries do not have product certification or component certification facility.

He also apprised the meeting participants that Export Development Fund (EDF) and other government schemes could be utilized for establishment of product testing, and certification facilities.

Representative of the PSQCA informed the meeting that the technical committee of the PSQCA has capability to develop all types of product certification and standardization but there is need to identify target market for product export.

Representative of the PCSIR informed that as far as the electric fan sector export was concerned, the PCSIR had all types of testing facilities, and the fan sector was exporting its product to the Middle East and other regions' target markets, however, the EMC facility was not available in Pakistan, which was mandatory requirement for the EU market.

The NIE representative informed that they were capable of all types of tests/inspections for electronic products. The DG PNAC informed that Pakistan was included in the list of countries having equivalent status for accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories and certification bodies for product certification all over the world.

The NEECA's representative informed that universities had many projects with stakeholders/local industry for the betterment of product efficiency/performance. He mentioned the example of civil engineering tests, which were being carried out commercially at universities, which could also be done for other engineering areas.

The NPO mentioned that they had a number of schemes to support such initiatives. Representative of Ignite informed about their various initiatives for supporting industrial productivity and capability enhancement leading towards Industry 4.0.

It was decided that the EDB would collect specific information from export sectors regarding their requirements for inspections, testing and certifications, which would be shared with the participants for devising the way forward to supporting the industry to enhance their exports capabilities according to international standards.