DOHA: Manufacturers exporting motorcycles to GCC will need to issue product certifications with their exports from January 1, 2015.
The certifications will have to specify that the motorcycles and their tyres have passed the needed performance and quality assessment tests and fully meet GCC standards.
The Secretariat-General of the GCC informed ministers concerned from member states of the decision at a meeting of GCC Standards and Specifications Committee in Riyadh on Wednesday.
He provided details of the steps to be taken to implement the unified GCC standards and specifications for motorcycles, their tyres and spare parts. He said the unified specifications were to be put into force from January 1, 2015 so motorcycle manufacturers must dispatch product certifications with their exports.
The ministers, who comprise the Board of GCC Standardisation Committee, approved common regional technical specifications for electrical appliances.
The appliances include washing machines, fridge, ovens, mixers, exhaust fans, heaters, hair driers, toasters, air-conditioners and switches, among others.
The specifications will be implemented on an experimental basis from June 1, 2015 and from January 1, 2016 they will be made mandatory which means electrical appliances that don’t meet the unified GCC specifications wouldn’t be allowed into member countries from January 1, 2016.
Qatar was represented at the meeting by the Environment Minister H E Ahmed bin Amer Al Humaidi. Qatar’s standards agency (Qatar General Organisation for Standards and Metrology) falls under the ministry, and is headed by Dr Mohamed Saif Al Kuwari, who also attended the meeting.
The number of unified GCC specifications has reached 13,277, of which 1,485 are technical regulations like those issued for electrical appliances.
The board also launched an electronic library comprising 1,900 sources of information. It is linked to American Society for Engineering Management.
The board said all member countries must make active use of the library. It approved the budget for GCC Standardization Authority for 2015. It was the 20th meeting of the board.
The GCC Accreditation Committee, affiliated with the regional standardisation authority, met on the sidelines of the board meeting and discussed plans to make GCC Accreditation Centre globally-acknowledged.
The Peninsula
