Presidential Prize motivates home producer to make competitive goods

The system of state control in the sphere of technical regulation and metrology has functioned for over 10 years now. How do the domestic standards meet the international requirements?

The Committee of technical regulation and metrology of the Industry and Trade Ministry was formed six years ago with the purpose to make requirement arrangements for the accession to the World Trade Organization by means of reorganization of the national system of standardization and certification and creation of a new system of technical control.

 There have been adopted 2, 510 state standards; 1,603 of them meet international norms. As per our evaluation conformance of the national standards to the international ones makes 64 percent.  In the real sector of economy this indicator equals 67%.  The Government instructed to ensure increase by two percent annually. At present the entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan apply the old GOST of the Soviet period. The reason of that is technical imperfection of the production base. In connection with the forced industrialization strategy we were given certain instructions in order to update the production base and release competitive production basing on the advanced international standards.  

Is our population well informed of the national standards? Can we expect the issue of re-inspection of Kazakhstan's export products in the purchasing countries?  

As it is known after the collapse of the Soviet Union the most parts of the standards remained in the Russian Federation. Therefore Kazakhstan had to work on them from zero. What do we have today? There are 17 measurements worldwide, and Kazakhstan possesses standards of 15 of them. Since 1994 we have been the full member of the international Organization. Since December 31 2008 we have been equal member of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Our national standards are integrated on the CIS territory and Central and East Europe.

As for acknowledgment of certificates of domestic commodities, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is working on this issue. There are about one thousand accredited entities in Kazakhstan that issue certificates. Our current goal is to enter the ILAC and IAF. In order to exclude repeat inspections of Kazakhstani commodities abroad and reduce their cost in 2006 we became associate members of these organizations.  To become their full members and make Kazakhstani certificates valid abroad, our national system of standards must fully conform to the international system. We have received recommendations from the experts of these organizations. The next year they will audit and estimate our work and make a decision. To facilitate this work we have passed the Law on accreditation for conformance evaluation.

In what fields does the Standard Center perform inspections on conformance to the international requirements?

The current work the Center includes comparing the country's standards of weight, length, electric lightening, magnet properties, Ph assessment, time and frequency, photometric and radiometric with those adopted in Russia, Byelorussia, Germany, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Czech Republic, Japan, France and Spain.   

January 1 2009 there was introduced the first environmental regulation Euro-2. What can you say about its effectiveness??

The Euro norms are requirements to the toxic substances in exhaust gas. The Euro-2 regulation for motovehicles came into force on July 15. The requirement to fuel will be introduced January 1 2010. In 2015 the home market will be supplied with domestic fuel meeting the Euro standards.

Euro-2 has been introduced quite recently; therefore we expect to evaluate its results in the end of the third quarter.

This year there will be another competition for the Altyn Sapa presidential prize. Are there any new peculiarities of changes in the competition rules?

This year the Head of the State made amendments to the competition rules. The competition for the Presidential Prize and exhibition contest were incorporated, and also there is no longer delimitation between small, medium and large businesses.  There will be three nominations: best industrial enterprise; best enterprise of consumer goods; best services enterprise. Applications are received till October 15. I would like to note that the number of the participants that qualify for the Prize is increasing every year. It also means that the Presidential Prize motivates enterprises to make better and more competitive products.

Presentation of the Altyn Sapa prize will take place on the second Tuesday of November, the World Quality Day.

Thank you for the interview.