CCC to work with SIS to promote trade through standardisation

The South Asia and South-East Asia regions (SESA) program supports eight countries in the South Asia and South-East Asia region including Sri Lanka to strengthen institutional capacity and their National Standard Bodies (NSBs) for increased participation in national and international standard development and strengthening the involvement of private sector companies in standardisation.

It is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) is responsible for the overall management.

Over the past years, the flow of investment and trade have increased sharply in the world.

The development is influenced by multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. But increasingly with competition, the buyer demands the seller follow a universally accepted guidelines, to assure satisfactory quality management and environment-friendly guideline.

Therefore, active and sustainable participation of the private and public sectors is vital as they have the necessary technical capacity and expertise to develop international standards which in turn contributes to economic development in the region.

Small-time local producers to multinational organisations will benefit from increased access to global markets.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), the premier business chamber in Sri Lanka, has an important role, linking the program and its activities to various stakeholders (NSB, private sector companies, NGOs, universities and governmental bodies) that are or will be users of the ISO standards in the future.

The CCC will work closely with the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) in implementing the national work plan under the SESA program. Long term sustainability of the results and institutionalisation of implemented activities in a transparent manner, in the South Asian region will be supported through the program coordinator based at the Chamber.

An SESA workshop and training of program organised by SIS with SLSI and CCC took place in July at the Cinnamon Lakeside. Over 40 officials and experts of NSB's and private organisations and NGO's representing all eight countries in the region were present.