By: Igihe.com Reporter
Rwandan businessmen have not been compliant to international standards for quality assurance, the Director General of Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) Dr. Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe has said.
Cyubahiro was attending a three day Regional Conformity Assessment workshop on product certification practices to ISO members.
“The challenges we have is convincing businessmen to have their products certified to meet international standards that gives one credibility and access to international market because you become trusted,” Cyubahiro said.
The certification is done by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for quality assurance of products.
Though certified products are highly needed on the international market, only 43 products have been certified with ISO in Rwanda.
African continent has gone below 3% of international business and it is believed that lack of certified products on international standards for quality assurance is among the contributors.
The ongoing workshop in Kigali which will end tomorrow August 18, has attracted about 50 participants from 27 African countries involved in conformity assessment activities.
The workshop aims at providing latest information on understanding the ISO standards and guides that set out the internationally agreed practices on conformity assessment activities.
Another focus will be made in respect to product certification practices, associated standards, and to respond to issues of special interest to the region during the workshop.
The ISO 9,000 family of standards relates to quality management systems and is designed to help organizations ensure they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders.
The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and available through National standards bodies.
The ISO 9,000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems including the eight management principles on which the family of standards is based with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard have to fulfill.
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