Strengthening the Compliance of the OIC Member States
to International Standards
114
Outside this framework, current evidence suggests that ASEAN’s progress on product standards has
been relatively limited. Member states have largely not been ambitious in scheduling non-tariff
measures—including product standards—for reform. Mutual recognition, upon which a considerable
amount of hope had been based, has been limited to a small number of sectors, namely cosmetics,
electrical goods, and telecommunications products. Progress on international harmonization—as
opposed to regional harmonization—has therefore largely been a matter of unilateral rather than
concerted action. The result is that the standardization landscape differs markedly from one country to
another.
The main institutional body dealing with standards and conformity assessment in ASEAN is the ASEAN
Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ), established in 1992. There are also working
groups on standards and MRAs, accreditation and conformity assessment, legal metrology, and sectoral
committees on electrical products, cosmetics, foodstuffs, automotive products, traditional medicines and
health supplements, medical devices, wood products, and rubber. These working groups have been
active in the development of harmonized standards through the process discussed above. Table 6 shows
progress through 2013.
Table 6: Progress on harmonization in ASEAN
Product Number of Harmonized Standards
Electrical appliances 58
Electrical safety 71
Electromagnetic components 10
Rubber-based products 3
Pharmaceuticals ASEAN Technical Dossiers and ASEAN Common
Technical Requirement
Source: Pettman (2013).
Harmonization work is also underway in other sectors considered to be of economic importance for the
region. They include: agro-based products, cosmetics, fisheries, pharmaceuticals, rubber-based products,
wood-based products, automotive products, construction products, medical devices, and traditional
medicine and health supplements. Agriculture-related sectors are of particular importance to a number