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Ismat Gul Khattak
Director General for Pakistan National Accreditation Council
Email: dg@pnac.gov.pk
Tel: +92 51 9206044
Fax: +92 51 9209510
DG Message:
Accreditation is an evolving field in many developing countries on the one hand and is a requirement of the developed countries on the other hand. Nowadays the emerging global trends in trade include new regulatory requirements from importing countries by requiring services of accredited conformity assessment bodies such as laboratories, certification bodies and inspection agencies to facilitate trade, which means the tests/certificates/ reports producted by accredited conformity assessment bodies are accepted without re-testing, re-certification or re-inspections, which saves time and money. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), around 80% of world trade amounting to trillions of dollars annually, involves conformity assessment. The use of conformity assessment services has come up as the trust which enables regulators to use accreditation as a tool to determine the technical competence, reliability and integrity of conformity assessment bodies, against nationally and internationally recognized standards and regulatory requirements.
Although there are thousands of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) (testing,calibration and medical laboratories, certification bodies and inspection agencies) available in Pakistan but the footprint of PNAC is very small, because, accreditation is, by and large a voluntary activity. Through the awareness sessions with regulators, in the recent years, a trend of using and accepting only accredited conformity assessment services is growing, in Pakistan, which will ultimately have a positive impact on the economic growth, and enhance quality of products and services besides protecting environment, health and safety in the country and abroad.
The good news is that PNAC has signed Mutual Recognition Arrangements with its international apex bodies, (ILAC, IAF and APAC) which means the certificates/ test reports bearing PNAC logo have a global acceptance, thus contributing towards ease of doing business.