On December 4-10, 2016, the Standards Alliance, together with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) and the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC) collaborated a detailed autos delegation visit to Washington, D.C, Detroit, MI, and Corinth, MS. The seven visiting officials included representatives of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism (Colombia and Ecuador), national standards body (NSB) (Ecuador and Mexico), Ministry of Transport (Colombia), and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (Colombia).
The workshop was an opportunity to discuss how to reduce trade concerns as well as to ensure countries are able to meet their legitimate regulatory-and standards-related goals in the least trade restrictive way. The event incorporated discussions and visits with experts from across the government, including National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as industry, including AAPC members, Toyota, NAVISTAR, Ford, Caterpillar, and Daimler, to name a few.
Participants visited the Caterpillar Reman facility and learned about regulatory compliance from the remanufacturing perspective, in addition to core inspection, advanced additive manufacturing technologies, assembly operations, and testing and verification operations. They also visited an automotive parts manufacturing facility and a remanufacturing facility.
The week long delegation visit was a follow-up to the one-day Automotive Standards and Regulations in the Americas workshop that Standards Alliance, DoC and the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC) conducted in Guayaquil, Ecuador on April 22, 2016, which included over 70 participants representing over 20 countries. As a result of the day workshop and other bilateral dialogue, Ecuador has agreed to accept the use of the "Blue Ribbon Letter" program to verify Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) certification of compliance for vehicles in Ecuador. This new certification option provides U.S. automakers with means to certify vehicles (safety requirements) to Ecuadorian authorities without incurring costs not born by products built to competing regulatory certification regimes. This success was a team effort, with Standards Alliance, U.S. industry, USTR, Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Embassy in Quito all playing instrumental roles.
The agenda and presentations from the workshop are available online.
About Standards Alliance
The Standards Alliance is a funding facility that provides capacity building assistance to developing countries specifically related to the implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement. The Standards Alliance is a joint ANSI-U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) initiative that supports global cooperation and capacity building in the areas of standards development, technical regulations, good regulatory practice, and conformity assessment.
For more information on the Standards Alliance and recent standards activities, visit standardsalliance.ansi.org.