Senior government officials from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have started preparing a homogeneous quality standard for products in the region to expedite trade and business to cope up with global market competition, a leading Nepali newspaper reported on Saturday.

According to The Himalayan Times report, the first SAARC joint secretary level meeting that concluded at the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu Friday has prepared a "plan of action" in which representatives from all member countries took part.

The first coordination board meeting was chaired by Nepal to discuss issues related to harmonization of standards, conformity assessments and procedures in the SAARC region, Shree Krishna Shrestha, who headed the Nepali delegation, informed the daily.

Shrestha is the director general of the Nepal Bureau of Standard and Metrology (NBSM) that comes under the ministry of industry, commerce and supplies.

The first meeting of the SAARC Standards Coordination Board has decided to take up four sectors, namely food and agriculture, electrical and electronics, jute-textiles, and leather, according to Shrestha.

Under the standardization procedures, issues such as system certification on products and services requiring harmonization will be taken up.

As per the criteria set by standards bodies, testing procedures will also receive priority.

The standardization of quality will address the problems of non- tariff barriers in the regional trade, Shrestha hoped.

All countries in SAARC, however, do not have standards board. Bhutan and Maldives are yet to create standard boards in their countries.

Source: Xinhua