THE emerging World Trade Order will provide tremendous opportunities of business expansion to enterprises determined to compete and continuously strive for improving the quality of products or services. Our future exports will depend greatly on the capability to exploit these opportunities.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is pursuing the policies of liberalizing trade and lays emphasis on the harmonization of “standard, testing, calibration, third party certification and the accreditation services. All these measures are leading to facilitate the trade and supply of quality products and services in the international market. It is imperative for Pakistan to urgently initiate steps that are necessary to encourage and motivate the industry, agriculture and other stake holders.

In this changing global trade scenario, the accreditation of certification bodies and laboratories are emerging fast. The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) are closely working with the WTO and developing the guides/standards which will tremendously affect the trade of a country. The IAF and the ILAC are apex international agencies and all the recognized and reputable accreditation bodies of the world are their members. It is, therefore, essential for the industry, trade houses and other enterprises to fully understand the accreditation system, its implications and effects on trade and more particularly on the exports. The conformity assessment bodies including the laboratories will also have to position themselves in the international infrastructure of accreditation to demonstrate the traceability and conformity with the international requirements.

What is accreditation? Accreditation is the procedure by which a person or an organization is authorized by a competent body to carry out specific tasks.

Why is it necessary? In this age of competition, the quality, environment, health and safety issues will determine the acceptability of goods and services by the consumers. Through accreditation, the consumers’ confidence is established, technical barriers to trade are reduced, quality of products and services is improved, and above all, export base of the country is broadened.

Accreditation hierarchy: In many developed and few developing countries, a national accreditation body is created to accredit certification agencies for the ISO 9000, 14000 Product Certification, laboratories for testing and the calibration. All conformity assessment bodies are accredited against the International Standards such as the ISO Guide 62 for Quality Management System (QMS), the ISO Guide 66 for Environmental Management System (EMS), the ISO Guide 65 for product certification and the ISO 17025 for laboratories accreditation. The national accreditation bodies are assessed through peer review by other accreditation bodies and also by the IAF or the ILAC through international auditors against the ISO Guide 61. The system continuously checks through the surveillance audit, to ensure that no compromise is made on standards. The system ensures validity of certificate issued by an internationally recognized accreditation body and enhance the creditability of the organization receiving such certificate.

Accreditation of certification bodies in Pakistan: To achieve the objective, a quality culture will have to be inculcated in our day-to-day life. It can be attained through mass awareness by holding workshops, lectures, seminars, etc. Our factories, organizations and companies will have to be apprised that initially, they should attain certification to the ISO 9000, the international quality management system. A survey indicates substantial increase in the export performance of the ISO 9000 certified companies.

In Pakistan, more than 2000 companies have been certified to this system and more are in the pipeline. All these companies are certified by the foreign-based certification bodies. At present nearly 2 dozen certification agencies are operating in Pakistan. The head offices of these certification bodies might be accredited by reputable accreditation agencies, but very few have been listed for surveillance audits in Pakistan. This greatly reflects on the performance of these certification bodies. After the establishment of the Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), some of these certification bodies have applied for accreditation by the Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC) to enhance their creditability. Certification agencies accredited with the PNAC will go through surveillance audits at regular intervals. This will tremendously build their confidence in these companies.

The PNAC will assist in developing a network of professional auditors and consultants working in the field of quality who together can help and strengthen the growing requirement of quality among the exporters of Pakistan. As far as the product certification is concerned, it is being carried out by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), a government organization which also requires strengthening. Efforts are under way to prepare the PSQCA as the first indigenous certification body for the ISO 9000 certification in the country.

Accreditation of laboratories: Presently, there are no accredited laboratories in the country. To obtain authentic test results, accreditation of these laboratories is essential. A laboratory is accredited if it conforms to the requirements of the ISO 17025 i.e., the international standard which spells out general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. There are 24 requirements in this standard out of which, 14 pertain to quality management system whereas 10 are purely technical. Any laboratory that complies with all 24 requirements of the ISO 17025 can be awarded accreditation by the PNAC. The issue of accreditation of laboratories should be taken seriously as already some trading partners of Pakistan are asking for testing certificates for the products exported to their countries by the accredited labs. In the absence of such laboratories, these items will have to be tested by the laboratories abroad that means exorbitant costs besides consuming lot of time and putting our exporters at great disadvantage. Hence, it would be essential to prepare our laboratories for accreditation with the PNAC to avert this avoidable expenditure.

Infrastructure: Recognizing the needs and changing global trade environment, the National Accreditation Council was setup by the ministry of science and technology in 1998. In 1999, the ministry, under the ADB-assisted Trade Export Promotion and Industry (TEPI) Project, launched the following services:-

*Accreditation of certification bodies operating for the ISO 9000/ISO 14000.

*Registration of auditors for quality management system.

*Accreditation of the laboratories which are extending testing and calibration services to its clients in public and private sectors.

To date, the PNAC has accredited two certification bodies in the country, whereas three more are under the process of assessment in above mentioned fields.

Besides, the following services are also planned for future;

*Product certification;

*Hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP);

*Safety standards;

*Standard for social accountability (SA8000) etc.

Impact: Under the new trade system it would be impossible to close our borders to high-quality products at low cost, nor it would be possible to push the low-quality product across the border. Also, the issues of environment, health and safety are high on the agenda of international community. In future, the international trading will become difficult, if international standards of quality, environment, health and safety are not fully understood and complied with.

In order to penetrate and capture foreign markets, we shall have to develop confidence among the foreign importers of the products or services supplied by our exporters in accordance with the international standards of quality environment, health etc. and certified by 3rd party internationally recognized accreditation system. Accredited certification is the only way through which our exporters can demonstrate to a client or an end-user in a distant country that the product or service supplied by them conforms to, or complies with the international standards. Lack of accredited testing, calibration and certification facilities in Pakistan are handicaps to our future trade and shall sooner or later affect our exports. Massive efforts and resources will have to be allocated by the government agencies, exporters and other stakeholders to prepare themselves for the future challenges of trade.

Conclusion: The future of our nation relies on rapid economic development and exports will play a pivotal role in achieving such objective. The international trends of certification and accreditation that are bound to affect our economic activities are unfortunately not well understood nor there is sufficient preparation in an organized and institutional manner to face these challenges.