National Meeting and Workshop on Conformity Assessment Underway

(ZIZ News) — The St. Kitts and Nevis Bureau of Standards held an opening ceremony today to launch a three-day National Meeting and Workshop on Conformity Assessment.

Science and Research Manager of the Bureau of Standards Dr. Marcus Natta in explaining conformity assessment said it simply a way of assuring consumers that products are held at an acceptable standard.

“Conformity assessment really just provides us as consumers first of all with some piece of mind so that we know that the products that we are consuming are done to some internationally recognized and accepted standard. And it is also quite important in terms of trade facilitation to ensure that the products that we export meet our expectation and meet an internationally recognized standard for quality and assurance,” he said.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of International Trade, Industry, Commerce, and Consumer Affairs, Charleton Edwards, encouraged those participating in the workshop to ensure that what is learned at the workshop be used for positive development of the economy.

“We ought to ensure that we continue to maintain the momentum that we have achieved to date with respect to manufacturing but there are other areas we want to see some further development. We need to ensure that there is continued growth, continued increase in competitiveness because the global economy is no longer a small economy but therefore the global economy is our economy and we must be able to participate and make sure that we can benefit from globalization and don’t be afraid of globalization,” he said.

The activities are funded under the 10th European Development Fund and CARICOM and held in collaboration with the Ministry Of International Trade, Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs through the Bureau of Standards.