ANSI President S. Joe Bhatia Meets with Chinese Officials in Washington, DC and Beijing

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) president and CEO S. Joe Bhatia recently met with several top officials from Chinese entities in Washington, DC, and Beijing for a series of trade-related activities aimed at fostering greater U.S-China cooperation in the areas of standardization and conformity assessment. U.S. exports to China have increased 468% since 2000, making China the United States' third-largest export market and one of the nation's largest trading partners in the world.

Building upon the Institute's strong relationships with high-level officials in China, Mr. Bhatia met with Administrator Sun Dawei of the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China (CNCA) on October 14 in Washington, DC, to discuss continued cooperation under the ANSI-CNCA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Signed in 2008, the MoU formalized the organizations' commitment to cooperate on conformity assessment activities in the interest of U.S.-China trade. [see related news item]

During their meeting, Mr. Bhatia and Mr. Sun also furthered plans to continue the U.S.-China Conformity Assessment Project (CAP). Led by the U.S. Department of Commerce with support from ANSI and the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), the project facilitates roundtable discussions between representatives from U.S. and Chinese industry and government, and conformity assessment practitioners. [see related news item]