Industry, govt, consumers to boost product standards

Sandy Darmosumarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Top government and industry officials, consumer groupings and scholars gathered on Thursday to endorse the formation of the Indonesian Standardization Society (MASTAN) in an attempt to raise public awareness on the need to put more attention on product standards.

Among the endorsers were State Minister for Technology and Research Hatta Radjasa, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Aburizal Bakrie, head of the National Standardization Agency (BSN) Iman Sudarwo and noted scholar Nurcholish Madjid.

The society aims at raising public participation in establishing a competitive national industry which is able to compete at the regional and international levels.

Additionally, the society members believed that standardization would contribute positively towards raising productivity, production efficiency and product quality -- all of which would components make the country's economy more competitive.

"Currently there are around 6,000 product standards, however only around 10 percent are actually implemented," commented Sunarya, deputy for standards application and accreditation with the BSN and one of MASTAN founders.

"These standards already exist through BSN's Indonesian National Standard (SNI), however their implementation lags way behind," he said.

It is hoped that a law on national standards, which is currently being drafted, will accelerate the implementation of the standards.

Meanwhile, Hatta hoped that MASTAN would unite producers, consumers and scholars in helping the government draft the law.

He stated that efforts to unite the general public to be more aware of standards is beyond the ability of the government due to the voluntary nature of abiding by standards.

Iman said that widely applied national standards would help small companies compete with larger ones. "Large companies rely on brand image to sell their products, whereas small companies face difficulties convincing the market to accept their products."

Aburizal said that "such standards should not necessarily raise the firms' production cost."

In 2004, the government will implement national standard for consumer electronic goods including washing machines, electric irons, electric water pumps, refrigerators and audio/video products.