Even if it may be unrest in the world, global trade and technological developments in electrical/electronic equipment are still going strong. We believe that also product safety is developing positively. Within Europe, however, some findings indicate a negative trend with the share of products on the market not being compliant with the applicable safety requirements including the share considered dangerous. Findings from this investigation are outlined in the second article below.
A topic with much attention in media these days is artificial intelligence (AI) and its vast potential benefits, but also the associated risks. When there are risks involved, there are need for standards, and in turn, a need for conformity assessment as indicated in the third article below.
Introducing E-certificate in the Arabic Gulf Region
In the Arabic Gulf region, the GCC Standards Organization (GSO) has officially launched a new service with an electronic solution, an ‘E-Certificate’ associated with the G-mark, which is mandatory for products to be marketed in the GCC member countries, i.e. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen.
In 2022, the TIC Council conducted a market study to determine the extent that electrical consumer products sold on the European market comply with the basic safety requirements of the European product legislation. and at the same time get insights into the impact that different approaches to conformity assessment can have on the safety of consumer products.
As mentioned in the October issue of this newsletter,IEC’s annual General Meeting was this year organized to take place physically in Cairo, Egypt, at the end of October with representatives of the National Committees of IECs 89 member countries and 85 affiliate countries. Unfortunately, as many National Committees decided to withdraw from participating due to the perceived uncertainty in the region, the physical meetings were canceled with only a few days’ notice and replaced by digital virtual events.
Among Africa’s 55 countries and about 1.3 billion people, South Africa is the 6th most populous with about 60 million. The control of imported electrical and electronic products is well organized, as regards technical- and conformity assessment requirements e.g. electrical safety, energy efficiency, EMC, and radio frequency.
There are three separate regulatory agencies covering their different areas and aspects:
- ICASA (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa).
- NRCS (National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications).
Status on the application of new Vietnamese requirements for the safety of ITC- equipment
The Vietnam Ministry for Information & Communication(MIC)did in May this year publish Circular 04/2023/TT-BTTTT, with effect from 15 July. It includes the list of IT- and communication equipment that from 1 January 2024 must comply with the new national regulation/standard QCVN 132:2022/BTTTT on electrical safety for telecommunications and information technology terminal equipment, such as desktop PCs, notebooks/laptops, and tablets, TV decoders, TV receivers, cable TV amplifiers and cordless phones.
Receive invitations to Nemko webinars on current compliance matters. The webinars will be conducted in English, and one will be able to access the recordings afterwards, for own use and sharing with others. please register here.
Hopefully, you are finding these topics to be of interest.
