Strengthening the Compliance of the OIC Member States
to International Standards
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Although APEC economies have enjoyed some success in bringing about greater alignment of domestic
standards with international ones, they have also encountered challenges.20 The point is particularly
true for developing economies, which make up the bulk of APEC’s membership. On the one hand, the
capacity of national standards bodies can sometimes be an issue. The sheer volume of standardization
taking place at the international level means that it is often impossible for smaller organizations to
follow all relevant developments, and participate adequately in the elaboration of new norms. More
fundamentally, some APEC economies have had to address the issue of standards culture: in some cases,
standard setting has traditionally been a public sector activity, whereas international standard setting
bodies are typically established under private law. The distinction between mandatory and voluntary
standards is also relevant. In a general sense, it has been important for APEC to bring about a greater
level of involvement by the business community in standard setting, including alignment with
international standards.
Another issue developing member economies have faced is differences in technology. The latest
international standards sometimes deal with technologies that are commonly used in Europe, North
America, and Japan, but developing economies may use technologies that were current in those places
years or even decades earlier. As such, the applicability of international standards may be an issue.
Although there are still potential benefits from harmonization, they are tempered if levels of technology
are so different that the new international standard is simply irrelevant to the way some firms do
business. This issue is one that is posed for all developing countries, not just APEC members, and no
doubt is felt by OIC member states at different levels of per capita income.
At the present time, the SCSC has a number of projects and initiatives underway, in line with its overall
objective of supporting the alignment of APEC member economies’ standards with international
standards, and developing mutual recognition of conformity assessments:
a) In collaboration with the Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group, the SCSC is developing a
work program on the specific challenges faced by SMEs in the context of standards and
certification, particularly with regard to GVCs;
b) In APEC, standards harmonization is seen as an element of a broader work program on Good
Regulatory Practices. Various organs within APEC continue to develop that stream of work, and
it supports the SCSC’s more focused attention on alignment of national standards with
international norms.
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