EU Delegation to BiH and BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations organised this Wednesday in Sarajevo a conference entitled “Quality infrastructure and accreditation as important components for strengthening economy”, for highest decision makers in administration and economy. But it is also important for the citizens. The conference was held within the EU funded project „Strengthening of the BiH Accreditation System”, with aim to provide information about the quality infrastructure system as a whole, its status of development in BiH and future steps.
Quality infrastructure of a country, consisting of standardisation, certification, metrology and accreditation is internationally recognized as basis for economic development and getting an opportunity in international trade, which makes it one of the preconditions for EU accession.
The European Union financed three projects under IPA 2007 in the field of quality infrastructure with an overall value of 3.7 Million EUR. According to Boris Iarochevitch, Chargé d’ Affaires of the EU Delegation to BiH, one project focused on Metrology, the other is related to the safety infrastructure, while the third project is strengthening the Accreditation System of Bosnia and Herzegovina. „The integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European quality infrastructure regimes is important to help enterprises develop international competitiveness, an export market and support economic growth“, said in his introduction address Iarochevitch.
According to him, the European Commission’s Progress Report on BiH for 2010 makes the observation that the fields of standardisation, accreditation, conformity assessment, metrology, market surveillance and consumer protection are moderately advanced.
„Under IPA 2008 and IPA 2009, we shall continue providing support in the area of accreditation, metrology, market surveillance and standardisation in value of 6 million EUR.“ concluded Boris Iarochevitch.
BiH Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Mladen Zirojević said that Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted seven out of 29 the EU New Approach Directives and created an environment for adopting the other directives as soon as possible.
„Although this is a great success, everything will be in vain if we don’t make a good coordination with economic subjects who must be prepared for the implementation of the regulations „, said Minister Zirojević.
Hans-Ulrich Mittmann, Team leader of the project „Strengthening the BiH Accreditation System“ said that „accreditation is the certificate of competency“, and competency is „the central element providing safety and standard application.“
„When you fill fuel in your car, you pay per litre. But, are you sure that you get the whole litre, because often the marked state doesn’t correspond to the real state. That is why we need standards“, described Mittmann.
Jacques McMillan, Head of Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate General Enterprise and Industry pointed out that there can only be one accreditation body in country, in order to avoid mutual competition. „Accreditation is an important element and we must protect it“, sad McMillan.
