Standards support rapid economic growth

This year the theme for the World Standards Day was 'International Standards ensure positive change.' A standard is an agreed way of doing something. It could be about manufacturing a product, managing a process, delivering a service or supplying materials. Standards cover a wide range of activities undertaken by organisations and used by their customers. A set of standards for any product in business as declared by any authority give the buyers a scope of time-saving, a wide range of choices and confidence.
Standards, both local and international, are developed to provide guidance to business firms on how they can enhance the lives of the people in society, in which businesses operate. These standards provide guidance to ensure social responsibility in business. Some of the principles as set out in these standards include accountability, transparency, ethical behaviour, respect for stakeholders' interests and the respect for rule of law.
Standards support rapid economic growth in developing countries by outlining best practices. Given the strong correlation between economic growth and urbanisation, standards are becoming increasingly important for helping cities develop more sustainable infrastructure, making them better places to live in.
October 14 is an important day in the calendar of standardisation. The day was chosen in 1946, when delegates from 25 countries first gathered in London and decided to create an international organisation focused on facilitating standardisation. The following year the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) was formed. The first World Standards Day was celebrated in 1970. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) joined the ISO in celebration of the World Standards Day in 1988. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) followed the suit in 1993.
Around the globe, different activities are chosen by national standards bodies to commemorate the event. In Bangladesh, the World Standards Day was marked on October 29 by the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI). They organised a TV talk show and published special supplements in newspapers.
The aim of celebrating the World Standards Day is to raise awareness among regulators, industries and consumers about importance of standards in everyday life and also to encourage efforts of stakeholders from various sectors of the economy in development of standards.
International trade is a key to development for any country. World trade is guided by free and transparent trade objectives of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Participation in international standardisation is helpful to meet requirements under the WTO- Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement.
Conformity to international standards helps organisations, especially those from developing countries like ours, to access new markets emerging in a free and fair global trade. From the economic point of view, standards ensure positive changes in those products that are made according to the specific international standards and can be marketed all over the world.
Once these products enter the international markets, businesses flourish due to expansion of the markets across borders. This leads to increased revenue for the government and thus the country with an improved living standard of people.
Standards ensure transfer of technology from developed countries to developing countries, which could otherwise be difficult and costly for developing countries to adopt.
From the environmental standpoint, standards help industries protect environment by ensuring less disposal of waste that pollutes environment. All over the world, everyone is now being concerned about global warming. The effects are heavily felt by developing countries like Bangladesh.
Implementation of international standards helps minimise environmental hazards such as reduction of carbon emissions that cause global warming and natural disasters such as droughts and floods. This brings about a positive change in the lives of the people.
Inherent strength of the standardisation process is that the standards are created by the stakeholders. Getting involved in this process can ensure significant advantages to business enterprises. The BSTI has set over 5,000 standards in diverse fields ranging from food, chemicals, engineering and textiles to high technology areas of electronics with a focus on international standards. These standards are set based on consensus by a network of technical committees comprising different stakeholders like industries, researchers, development organisations, consumers and testing laboratories. Of them, 153 standards are declared mandatory by the government of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Standards (BDS) are developed with the special attention paid to multidisciplinary areas such as health and safety, energy conservation, environment protection, rural development, accessibility of persons with disabilities etc. All of them play a vital role in ensuring a better quality of life. On the issue of human health and safety, one concern is the availability of food that is hygienic and free from contaminants. The BSTI has done extensive research in this area and set a number of standards covering food safety requirements for street food vendors, good retail management practices across the food supply chain, hygienic practices applicable to the food supply chain and effective manufacturing practices in food processing.
The ISO has over 19,500 standards touching almost all aspects of daily life. When products and services conform to international standards, consumers can have confidence that they are safe and the products are of good quality. For example, the ISO's standards on road safety, toy safety and secure medical packaging are just a selection of those that help make the world a safer place. The ISO supports involvement of consumers in the standards development work.
The ISO standards are vital resources for a government when it comes to developing regulations. Local governments can make ISO standards a regulatory requirement for betterment of citizens. The ISO standards are developed by experts.
The ISO standards are adopted by many governments. By integrating ISO standards into national regulations, governments help ensure that requirements on imports and exports are the same, globally. The existence of varied national and regional standards can create technical barriers to trade and increase the cost of doing business. International standards provide the technical basis, based on which political trade agreements can be put into practice, whether they are at the regional or international level.
Some organisations promote the idea of open standards. An open standard is a standard that is publicly available. The terms "open" and "standard" have a wide range of meanings associated with their usage. It encourages fostering growth but denies the copyright. Many countries are in favour of the open standard policy.
There are some limitations of standards. To be effective, standards are needed to be revised frequently in response to rapidly changing circumstances. However, in practice, legislation tends not to keep up with the pace of change.
The administrative cost of implementing the standards monitoring and the enforcement costs may be high. There could also be social and political costs, if the standards are stringent and businesses are adversely affected.
Adopting standards for products and services are strategic tools that reduce costs of business and increase productivity. International standards bring technological, economic and societal benefits. They also help harmonise technical specifications of products and services making industries more efficient and breaking down barriers to international trade. Conformity to international standards helps reassure consumers that products are safe and harmless to the environment.
The writer is Director General of Bangladesh Accreditation Board.
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