10 Jul National Quality Infrastructure Workshop for the Chemical Industries

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) recently conducted the National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) Workshop of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) for chemical industries on June 27, 2017 at the Y2 Hotel, Makati City.

NCC is a public-private taskforce created through Executive Order No. 44. It aims to improve the competitiveness of the country and instill a culture of excellence through public and private sector collaboration. In pursuing this goal, NCC has created several Working Groups composed of champions and members from different government agencies and the private sector. They are responsible in identifying and recommending policies and projects on specific issues that are affecting the country’s competitiveness.

One of NCC’s working groups is the NQI Working Group (NQI-WG), which aims to develop strategic policies leading to the improvement and the harmonization of the country’s quality infrastructure (e.g. standardization, accreditation, metrology, conformity assessment).

Mr. Jon Echanove, Expert from the European Union, facilitated the open discussion with the industry sectors on compliance with technical requirements as an obstacle to access the domestic market, e.g. over regulation or out-of-date technical regulations, conformity assessment only through regulatory bodies, lack of accredited lab and as an obstacle to trade facilitation, e.g. domestic technical specifications/regulation diverge from those of the target market, lack of accredited and recognized laboratories in PH, lack of certification bodies.

Prior to the workshop, a questionnaire was sent to the industry stakeholders and was discussed during the workshop.