Boosting standards

Focus on standards to improve trade

Standards and quality in Barbados and other CARIFORUM states are about to get a major boost as officials introduce a Quality Infrastructure Project which they say would help to address aspects of the region’s development and improve local, regional and international trade.

This comes as Minister of Business Development and Senior Minister Coordinating the Productive Sector Kerrie Symmonds announced that Government would soon be introducing sanitary and phytosanitary legislation.

“The conversation in Barbados must be about sanitary and phytosanitary standards, which is another piece of legislation that is now on our Order Paper which we are going to pass in Parliament to carry this country kicking and screaming into the 21st century. It has to come,” said Symmonds.

Stressing the importance of high quality standards for food safety and plant health, he acknowledged that once achieved, it bec omes easier for international trade to take place.

“It [commerce] takes place in the fish market with no reference to sanitary and phytosanitary issues. It takes place around the Caribbean in similar circumstances and therefore, for us to be able to make sure that we can trade in those goods that we produce, our people must be comfortable and part of their second nature must be that standards matter,” said Symmonds.

“For us to get where we want to be, I believe we have to transform these operational practices in order to align standards with best practices in this region, and to get our community, especially our small business enterprises and micro enterprises to see standards as an essential foundation for the services they want to provide and the products they want to develop and to share with the rest of the community.

“If we can do that, in my judgement, then we take a long step and go a long way towards building a quality-based economy,” explained Symmonds.

The issue of standards and quality came under the microscope on Monday, as CROSQ introduced its 2022 to 2025 Strategic Plan, as well a Quality Infrastructure Project, which is supported by the European Union (EU), the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP)/United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

Coming out of the Quality Infrastructure Project is a Regional Non-Medical Laboratory Policy, which officials say will help CARIFORUM member states to better develop their laboratories for non-trade purposes.

The Quality Infrastructure Project, which consists of several components and themes, comes with scorecards to track the activities and objectives.

Chief Executive Officer of CROSQ Deryck Omar said officials of the organisation would be “going hardcore” over the next three years to help with a “quality culture development” in the region.

“We really want to get down to the granular level in member states to help people really understand what standards are about and to show them it is all around them and they use it without even knowing it and that they need to be more conscious of promoting and pushing those standards when they buy,” he said.

He said the Quality Infrastructure Project, which was one of three to be rolled out, would “finally help the regional quality infrastructures of Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean to start having some strong linkages.”

“If you can link those quality infrastructures of those three south-south regions together then you can be sure that will help trade to grow between them,” he said.

He added that once the Regional Non-medical Laboratory Policy was adopted by member states, it will help them to have “a strategic and tactical agenda to develop their laboratories for non-trade purposes in the region.”

CROSQ was in the process of rolling out several other quality infrastructure projects across various sectors.

Quality infrastructure refers to the institutional framework needed to implement measures such as standards, accreditation, testing, inspection, metrology and measurement services, certification and quality promotions.

CROSQ Council Vice Chairman Stuart LaPlace pointed to the growing demand for quality management systems, stating that if the region is to “survive and thrive during these challenging times, quality competitiveness and quality infrastructure must be central tenets” of its development.

“In many cases, our economies are small and our internal markets finite, which is why we need the potential for expansion which trade provides. The only way to trade in goods and services is to meet the regulatory and other requirements to enter new and existing markets, which are likewise tightening their own controls. This is where sound quality infrastructure shows its strength,” he said.

LaPlace said he believed the new 2022 to 2025 Strategic Plan would begin the process of looking at how the region can respond to the changing needs and demands.

“Each project and intervention takes into consideration what our populace is demanding from member states, as well as the development of our quality related institutions themselves,” he said.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb