Friday, October 30, 2015. Trinidad. A high level Caribbean Conformity Assessment Week – “Advancing Caribbean Trade through Quality Assurance” – w ill kick off in Trinidad and Tobago on Monday, November 2, 2015, with representatives from most of the CARIFORUM States in attendance. The week, being funded by the 10 th European Development Fund (EDF) Technical Barriers to Tr ade (TBT) Programme, which is managed in the Caribbean by the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), the Dominican Republic’s Institute for Quality (INDOCAL) and the German Metrology Institute (PTB), is also being held in collabora tion with the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS). The week , which runs until November 6, will comprise three impo rtant meetings for this region under t he theme “Advancing Caribbean Trade through Quality Assurance” . The first event is the inaugural meeting of the CROSQ – Caribbean Network of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CANCAB) Committee.
The newly formed Committee was established with the responsibility to develop the regional conformity assessment (quality assurance) infrastructure as it relates to testing, inspection, certification and market surveillance. This meeting will provide the definition, scope and goals of the CANCAB Committee , along with developing the strategic framework of the regional conformity assessm ent infrastructure . Additionally, the week will include a n Organization of American States (OAS) FEMCIDI Programme sponsored regional workshop entitle d “ Conformity Assessment in National Processes – Building Regional Competence in the Disciplines of Confor mity Assessment ” . The workshop will bring together both private and public sector , including regulators and business support institutions, to introduce participants to the national, regional and international considerations for the preparation and applicat ion of conformity assessment . The week will end on Friday, with the 3 rd Meeting of the Technical Implementation Group for Conformity Assessment, which will conduct an assessment of the objectives and results for conformity assessment within the 10 th EDF TBT Programme, and then plan activities and objectives for the upcoming year towards the end of the project in 2017. Caribbean Conformity Assessment Week 2015 represents a major milestone for the development of quality infrastructure within the region , as efforts are made to advance Caribbean trade through quality assurance. The formation of the CANCAB Committee, which comprises representatives from both the private and public sector, represents one of the more important achievements thus far
