Uzbekistan’s technicians receive expert training on technical barriers to trade
Three recent workshops helped Uzbekistan’s laboratory staff and other officials gear up to apply technical requirements on traded goods
Countries that trade internationally apply a whole range of rules and standards to assure the quality and safety of imported goods – ranging from chemicals to industrial power drills.
The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) ensures that these technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures are not applied in a way that create unnecessary barriers to trade.
As part of Uzbekistan’s process to join the WTO, technicians and laboratory staff are receiving extensive training in this highly technical area of trade administration. The ITC organized the training at the request of the Agency for Technical Regulation.
Three training workshops were held in May.
The first, on 14-15 May, focused on the international standard – ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015 – that deals with the competence, consistency and impartiality of bodies responsible for the auditing and certification of management system standards.
From 20-22 May, officials and technical staff from public and private testing and calibration laboratories and other relevant government departments, enhanced their knowledge about metrological traceability in measurement, repeatability, and the reproducibility of tests. Trainees came to grips with quality system documentation and environmental controls, as well as the basics of statistics applied when measurement uncertainty is estimated.
The third workshop, on 23-24 May, dealt with a risk-based approach to accrediting conformity assessment bodies. Key concepts such as risk identification, risk assessment, and risk management were unpacked. The training looked at the role of science and uncertainty in conformity assessment decision-making and how to recognise the results.
All three workshops combined tutorials with assignments and case studies. This helped provide not only a theoretical foundation but gave participants interactive experience of what they will encounter on the ground.
More than 230 participants attended the three workshops, including 93 women and 162 public sector officials. The first training was conducted online, while the other two were presented both on site and online.
The workshops complete a series of 13 that the ITC committed to deliver to help strengthen Uzbekistan’s institutional capacity in the area of TBT.
The training was facilitated by the ITC with European Union funding as part of the EU’s project Facilitating the process of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO project.
