By William Madouk
The East African Community (EAC) states have resolved to adopt fifty-nine (59) standards formula as the curtain comes to a close for a five-day meeting.
They include fish and fish production, petroleum, drinking water, milk, cosmetic and food and food production just to mention but a few.
In his remark during the closing of 5-days meeting, Eng. Yona Afrika, chairperson of the EAC Standards Management Committee said adopted standards will be submitted to the 27th meeting of all CEOs and MDs of the Bureau of Standards in the region.
“Our deliberation was very nice, and we did our deliberations on almost all the agendas, and we concluded and approved 59 standards to be submitted to the Standards Committee in the next two weeks,” he said.
He cited that the approved standards were done through twelve (12) subsectors such as: “One of them including the milk subsector, petroleum subsector, cosmetic subsector”
Mr. Yona added, “There is also the drinking water subsector, which I think in South Sudan is one of the contributing subsectors in the economy, and probably in the export as well.”
“So, this is one of the key issues which we concentrate on making sure that the partner states in the EAC, they do use standards, doing business across the borders, and all of these subsectors, the products that originated from the EAC,” he noted.
SMC boss, explained that it is important to concentrate on standardizing regional trading goods.
“Also, we have established how to do the product, a new product in the EAC, a probably new product for cross-border business. This is gum Arabic. This also will be considered for standardization in the next meeting,” Yona asserted.
He highlighted that standardization in the level of local product that are originated in EAC are considered much importance on the EAC to actively participate in the standardization in the African continental free trade area.
“So, we have considered more than 15 standards from our level, which will be included in East Africa for trade facilitation, but we also agreed on how best we can collaborate with other Africans,”
Meanwhile, the Executive Director for the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS), Gloria Nyoka, said she believes in the capability of brains behind the birth of standard formulas.
“I believe in your capacity, and I believe that all the discussion that you have done here is going to be forwarded in the upcoming meeting in Arusha, whereby all the heads of the NSBs are going to be there,” she said.
Executive Director for South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS), Gloria Nyoka
“This gives us really a milestone, we are going to trade out, and our exports are also going to go to the region and ahead of the region,” Nyoka added.
Nyoka clip 1