House of Representatives Urges Easier SNI Certification for SMEs

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Deputy Chair of Commission VII of the House of Representatives (DPR RI), Chusnunia, is pushing for the strengthening of testing and standardisation facilities to make it easier for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to meet the Indonesian National Standards (SNI), thereby increasing product competitiveness and expanding markets.

Chusnunia, who also serves as the Chair of the Working Group on National Industrial Standardisation, stated in Jakarta on Wednesday that compliance with SNI is vital for industrial products, including for SME players seeking to expand their marketing efforts abroad.

According to her, the ease of meeting SNI requirements needs to be supported by increasing the number of testing laboratories and certification bodies located closer to and more affordably accessible for SME entrepreneurs.

She noted that accredited and adequate testing laboratories are still largely concentrated in certain major cities, which can create difficulties for SMEs located in regional areas.

“The long distances force business owners to incur extra costs to transport samples or large machinery to other regions, which burdens SMEs. This is a task for the National Standardisation Agency (BSN); production in one province should not be hindered by SNI requirements simply because the laboratory is located in a distant province,