CEN-CENELEC and India discuss the Role of International Standards in facilitating Global Trade

Trade and technologies are not limited to regional and national boundaries. International standards can facilitate global trade and the spread of new technologies by effectively removing technical barriers to trade. This helps to create new market opportunities and promotes economic growth. International standardisation will therefore continue to grow in importance for all sectors of industrial activity in the foreseeable future.

On 27 November, the European Standardization Bodies CEN and CENLEC and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) jointly organised a workshop on “Emerging challenges in new era of standardization: Exchange of best practices” in New Delhi. Experts from India and Europe exchanged on effective participation of relevant stakeholders in standardisation and ways to enhance engagement in international standardisation.

The country component India of the Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) presented the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the German standardisation bodies DIN and DKE. The presentation highlighted the relevance of harmonising national standards with international standards to reduce technical barriers to trade and how the activities of the project contribute to that.

The involvement of stakeholders such as industry associations in standardisation and collaboration at international level are some of the key topics discussed between India and Germany as part of the Indo-German Standardisation Dialogue within the framework of the Working Group.

The Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) of BMWi supports Indo-German cooperation in the areas of standardisation, conformity assessment, accreditation, product safety and market surveillance. As part of GPQI, GIZ – the German Agency for International Cooperation – has been commissioned by BMWi to support the implementation of the project in India.