In Bali, Indonesia, the site of the recent Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC)—a forum to strengthen international standardization programs for the Asia Pacific region—American National Standards Institute (ANSI) members, PASC members, and major standardization stakeholders gathered for a series of meetings that highlighted the theme, "How to Engage Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises' (MSME's) Standardization Activities."
Hosted by the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia (Badan Standardisasi Nasional - BSN), the PASC 39 meeting May 8-13 included 20 out of the 24 PASC members in attendance. PASC also welcomed representatives from the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC), Asia-Pacific Metrology Programme (APMP), as well as senior leadership of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) as observers to PASC.
At a workshop on May 9 ANSI members ASTM International and the IAPMO Group presented at the session"Promoting Standardization to MSMEs." The focus of the discussion was for organizations to share and discuss effective strategies, initiatives, and platforms on reaching out to MSMEs, especially on raising the adoption of voluntary international standards by MSMEs as well as raising MSMEs participation in the development of standards.
During the first day of the event, Chaesub Lee, Ph.D., director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, provided an overview of some of ITU-T's priority activities. Kevin McKinley, acting secretary general of ISO, provided updates on the implementation of the ISO Strategy 2016-2020, services standardization, and the "ISO Action plan for Developing Countries," and Mr. Alan Morrell, director of the ISO Regional Office, Singapore, presented on the ISO Regional Engagement Initiative (REI). In addition, an IEC Masterplan consultation facilitated by ANSI's Tony Zertuche, general secretary of USNC/IEC, took place. PASC formed six break-out groups to discuss aspects of the IEC Masterplan, the results of which will be collated by the PASC Secretary for submission to the IEC for their consideration.
PASC strongly encouraged its members to continue the development of their engagement with the ISO Regional Office's services, and make their stakeholders aware of the unique value and services provided.
As part of the priorities and action items for PASC from 2016 (under the PASC Strategic Plan), PASC Working Group (WG) progress was discussed at length, and each working group gave a report on the status of various initiatives. The four WGs include:
WG 1: PASC 2020 and Communication
WG 2: Partnership and Stakeholder Engagement
WG 3: Capacity Building and Trade Facilitation
WG 4: PASC's Business Model
PASC is currently updating its website and anticipates completion by summer 2016. Standards Australia (SA) is taking the lead on this initiative and will work with the PASC WG 1 (ANSI and the South Africa Bureau of Standards (SABS) are co-chairs) on the finalization of this priority.
Looking ahead, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) announced that it will host PASC 40, a joint COPANT-PASC meeting, April 30 - May 5, 2017, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
For more information or any questions, please contact Jessica Roop, international policy manager, ANSI, at [email protected].