APEC recognizes RI accreditation body

APEC recognizes RI accreditation body

JAKARTA (JP): The Pacific Cooperation Council (PAC), an
accreditation body established by APEC member countries, will
formally recognize certification and accreditation issued by the
Indonesian standardization board.

The chief of the National Standardization Agency, Herudi
Kartowisastro, said recognition was agreed upon in the signing of
a multilateral agreement at a PAC meeting in Bali on Thursday.

He said that with the signing of the agreement, all APEC
members would recognize certification and accreditation issued by
the Indonesian agency.

"The recognition means that the agency has successfully passed
peer evaluation and fulfills international standards," he said in
a statement.

Herudi said that Indonesia and Thailand, which also signed the
agreement on Thursday, were the eighth and ninth countries
respectively to sign such an agreement, which were first
introduced three years ago.

The first countries to sign agreements were Australia, Canada,
China and Japan, in January 1998, followed by Malaysia and
Singapore in November 1998 and South Korea in July 1999, he said.

PAC, established in 1993, is a regional cooperation forum
between accreditation bodies in APEC countries. Its members
comprise 19 accreditation bodies in the Asia Pacific.

The meeting in Bali was attended by 50 delegations as well as
observers from the United States, Germany and the Association of
South East Asian Nation's (ASEAN) secretariat. (10)