ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: All major industrial exports of the country have been facing problems at ports of importing countries because of not fulfilling WTO requirements.

Informed sources told Dawn on Saturday that Pakistani exports required a certificate from an Accrediting Testing Laboratory under ISO-17025 and the country had been urged by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ensure its quality control, otherwise its exports would continue to decline.

The policy of the government to enhance the activity of the industrial sector and diversification of exportable and importable products have placed serious responsibility on the Quality Control Centre of the Pakistan Standard and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA).

With an increase in the workload and the mounting demand for quality certificates by exporters of a vast range of exportable products, the up-gradation of the Quality Control Centre of the PSQCA with state-of-the-art equipment has become inevitable. The centre is situated in Karachi.

The up-gradtion of the centre will ease sanctions imposed by western countries on Pakistan under the WTO requirements. Once the centre is upgraded, all major purchasing organisations and big industries of the country will be utilising the improved testing arrangements at the PSQCA and, because of this, a significant improvement is expected in timely reporting of exportable/importable items at the time of ascertaining their conformity to standard specifications.

This will also minimise delays because of the absence of quality certificate besides eliminating sub-standard goods to a large extent.

Taking cognizance of the situation, the Ministry of Science and Technology has sought an urgent approval of the government to upgrade the Quality Control Centre by purchasing the required lab equipment along with the provision of furniture and fixture for PSQCA Complex, Karachi, at cost of Rs437.44 million.

The national quality policy plan and its approved action plan envisage establishing and strengthening of 100 laboratories in the country and for this purpose it had allocated Rs5 billion.

The sources said quality improvement had become a key national and international business strategy to succeed in the international market.