OREANDA-NEWS. As part of the Russian Business Week, a series of events run by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) every year, the World Trade Center hosted an international conference, “Importance of Industry in Shaping the Technical Regulation System of the Unified Economic Space.”

The participants and guests of the conference were greeted and addressed by Alexander Shokhin, Chairman of the RSPP, Dmitry Pumpyansky, Vice President of the RSPP and Chairman of the RSPP’s Committee on Technical Regulation, Standardization and Compliance Verification, Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of the World Trade Center Moscow, Gennady Chemerko, Deputy Chairman of the Republic’s Association of Industrial Enterprises (BelAPP), and Ms. Lorenza Jachia, Secretary of the UNECE Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

Most attendees concurred on the key importance of participation of industrialists and members of the business community in development, discussion and enforcement of unified technical regulations, and in providing advice on their application. Mr. Pumpyansky stressed the fact that Kazakhstan and Belarus’ experts should be involved when final decisions are to be made. According to Mr. Shokhin, “a unified system of technical regulation will enable transfer from the concept of the Customs Union to the concept of the European Economic Space.”

“Technical regulation is a key link in the Customs Union’s integration process. However, interstate regulations are a phenomenon quite new to us, and one which still needs to be shaped,” said Mr. Chemerko. He also shared issues that Belarus enterprises are confronted with, including high costs of certification procedures, shortage of specialized laboratories, etc. Furthermore, Mr. Chemerko also voiced some proposals, among which were recognition of foreign certificates for production equipment, introduction of a “transition period” after adoption of a new technical regulation.

Harmonization of standardization and accreditation systems was one of the conference’s big topics. According to Mr. Salamatov, it’s quite difficult to similar results when running a compliance verification procedure in different countries or regions, in view of climate, regional and even historical differences. “One test that gives recognition everywhere is what every manufacturer dreams about. But there cannot be any unification with the EU or APEC countries. In that case, we talk about harmonization,” said Mr. Salamatov speaking at the conference.

Vladimir Koreshkov, Member of the Board and Technical Regulation Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission, cited a list of new technical regulations which are scheduled for discussion in the immediate future. Some of those require certain personnel competencies, and thus necessitate involvement of specialists from research institutes.

Other issues discussed at the conference included development of the technical regulation system of the Customs Union and Unified Economic Space, government control (supervision) of compliance with requirements of technical regulations, background evidence underpinning technical regulations, accreditation of certifying authorities and test labs. Speaking of particular industry segments, matters related to technical regulation in Russia’s construction industry, in production of wheeled motor vehicles and of equipment for explosive environment were discussed.