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Standards Influences in the Middle East and North Africa

Standards Influences in the Middle East and North Africa. Renee Hancher Office of Multilateral Affairs Market Access and Compliance/ITA. Overview. United States and the European Union (EU) World’s largest markets World’s biggest standards developers

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Standards Influences in the Middle East and North Africa

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  1. Standards Influences in the Middle East and North Africa Renee Hancher Office of Multilateral Affairs Market Access and Compliance/ITA

  2. Overview • United States and the European Union (EU) • World’s largest markets • World’s biggest standards developers • U.S. standardization system is market-driven and private sector-led. • European standardization system is government-driven and top down. Both the United States and European Union are undertaking standards activities in many countries and regions.

  3. Europe’s Standards Activities in the Middle East • Neighborhood Policy • Delivery of Technical Assistance • CEN/CENELEC Agreements

  4. European Neighborhood Policy • A framework for relations with the European Union’s eastern and southern neighbor states. • Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia. Bilateral Action Plans identify areas for cooperation and influence technical assistance provided by the EU; • Association Agreements address standards and conformity assessment. • Active agreements: Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Palestinian Authority and Tunisia. • In process: Algeria, Lebanon and Syria

  5. European Technical Assistance • Encourages institution building and development of regulatory infrastructure to support standards and conformity assessment; • Promotes Europe’s regulatory system and standards; • Free standards • Commercial Service Brussels estimates European standards technical assistance to the Middle East since 1996 at $72 million. Algeria $500,000 Jordan $4.6 million Lebanon $7.2 million Morocco $1.9 million Tunisia $6 million MEDA $7 million

  6. CEN and CENELEC Partner Agreements • Solidify standards ties in specific sectors; • For countries that are ISO members, but cannot join CEN or CENELEC; • CEN (Partner Standardization Bodies) • Obligated to implement European standards as national standards for technical committees where active. • PSB must withdraw conflicting national standards when adopting European standards.

  7. CEN/CENELEC PARTNERS CEN CEN PARTNER STANDARDIZATION BODIES Egypt Tunisia Israel (considering) CENELEC AFFILIATES Tunisia Israel (considering)

  8. USG Standards Related Activities in the Middle East and North Africa • Technical Assistance • Free Trade Agreement TBT chapters • NIST Standards in Trade Workshops • Other Initiatives

  9. U.S. Standards Technical Assistance • USAID Trade Capacity Database reports TBT-related technical assistance at $3.4 million for 2000-2004; • Private sector efforts by ANSI and SDOs are significant; • Delivered to Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco.

  10. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) • United States has FTAs with Bahrain, Israel, Jordan and Morocco; • OMA FTA implementing legislation signed; • UAE FTA in process; • Recent FTAs have TBT chapters that build on WTO TBT Agreement provisions, encourage use of international standards; • Israel and Jordan FTAs have no TBT chapters.

  11. NIST Standards in Trade Workshops • Raise awareness by foreign government and private sectors representatives about the U.S. standardization system. • Nine workshops for the region in the last decade: Iraq Housing and construction sectors MENA/ Life safety/building construction Pakistan Israel Roadway infrastructure and ITS GCC Electrical appliance safety & metrology

  12. Other Initiatives • Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) • Provides standards-related technical assistance to WTO members and FTA partners; • Example: 2006 Moroccan delegation studied U.S. regulatory system. • Afghanistan and Iraq • USG working to set up standards infrastructures; • NIST standards advisor deployed to Iraq in 2006.

  13. ITA Follow-Up • ITA continues to monitor - -private sector input welcome; • Report market access issues to DOC (tcc.export.gov); • Notify U.S. provides information on proposed foreign technical regulations that can affect exporters. http://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/index/index.cfm

  14. Have Increased Use of European Standards in the Middle East and North Africa or the CEN/CENELEC partner agreements affected: • Information flows (transparency); • U.S. exports to the region; • Participation in standards development; • Please provide specific examples.

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