Conformity Assessment

Conformity assessment is the name given to the processes and procedures that are used to demonstrate that a product or a service, management system, an organization or personnel meets specified requirements. These requirements are usually stated in international standards developed by organizations such as ISO (International Organization for Standardization). The requirements for conformity assessment activities themselves are also given in international standards and this helps to ensure consistency worldwide, as well as cross-border acceptance of results.

The use of international standards thus harmonizes conformity assessment activities throughout the world. This has far-reaching benefits for international trade in general. Agreements among nations or regions on the mutual acceptability of requirements, assessment methods, inspection or test results, etc., can all help to reduce or remove technical barriers to trade. These are requirements and rules – often defined in regulations - relating to importation and market access that vary from country to country and may bar a foreign product from entering a national market.

The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO TBT Agreement) was established to ensure that technical regulations and standards, and the procedures for assessing conformity with them, do not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade.

The WTO TBT Agreement promotes the recognition by countries of each other’s conformity assessment results as a way of reducing barriers to trade. It emphasizes that confidence in the reliability of conformity assessment results is a prerequisite to recognition of assessments. Therefore, a QIS in a developing country that is able to demonstrate the conformity of the nation’s products and services to international standards, and also to provide confidence in local conformity assessment activities, makes an significant contribution to the competitiveness of nation’s economy and industry.