International standards our backbone

Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, has described international standards as “the backbone of our society”.

He underlined that these ensured the safety and quality of products and services, facilitated international trade and improved the environment.

“When products conform to international standards, consumers can have confidence that they are safe, reliable and of good quality. A product or service which conforms to an international standard is considered as having a trusted symbol of quality, safety or compatibility. Standards speak to the diversity of our interconnected world, introducing uniformity at the interfaces where we need to be certain that we are speaking on the same terms,” he outlined.

The minister was making remarks at a national seminar themed: ‘Standards Build Trust’, hosted by the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Barbados National Standards Institution, and the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation on Monday, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

Among the discussions slated on the conference’s agenda was that of the Standards Act, 2006-5, which Inniss said illustrated that all pre-packaged commodities imported or manufactured in Barbados must have affixed a label which conforms to the compulsory standards.

The minister stated that these standards were strategy tools, providing guidelines to help companies tackle some of the most demanding challenges of modern business, while ensuring that business operations were as efficient as possible, increased productivity and helped companies access new markets.

During the seminar, members of the audience took part in an interactive session aimed at helping producers of goods and services in understanding best practices in labelling of pre-packaged goods. (JMB)