By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
A properly-functioning Standards Bureau could help boost commerce in the Bahamas, while lowering trade costs and promoting linkages between different sectors.
Hope Strachan, minister for financial services, said during her Budget presentation that the Bahamas Bureau of Standards had secured premises at the former Bacardi brewery administrative office in southern New Providence.
“This facility is over 7,000 square feet and will be utilised for all services until such time that we can retrofit the laboratory building to meet environmental specifications in an effort to expand our metrology services,” said Mrs Strachan.
“We have recruited seven staff members to the bureau, established technical services in standards development to include the adoption of three regional standards.”
The Standards Bureau, which has to be established as part of the Bahamas’ membership commitments under rules-based trading regimes such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), is designed to both protect consumers and facilitate trade.
“In our standards development programme, we have six regional standards for which we will begin the adoption process in short order. The standards up for adoption by the Standards Council are based on priority needs from our stakeholder groups,” said Mrs Strachan.
“A properly functioning Bureau of Standards, and the implementation of global standards, can boost commerce by lowering trade costs, create remote linkages with other sectors and further open up rthe Bahamas to foreign markets and level the playing field between companies, demanding higher productivity via process innovation and the creation of even more innovative products,” said Mrs Strachan.
Comments
GrassRoot 8 years, 10 months ago
not convinced. we should simply tag onto the US system, UL, EPA, etc. We can not make it work properly anyhow.
The_Oracle 8 years, 10 months ago
Particularly since manufacturers have always footed the major costs of standards certification over decades if not. Major manufacturers also had input on the creation of standards, something we have yet to be afforded in any way! Imagine that, private public sector working together! Importers will foot the costs, for testing, delays, incompetence, which means the end consumers and the economy will get hit. Accepting the standards of the U.S. and EU makes sense, with as little interference by Government as possible.
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