APEC workshop discusses management on technical barriers

The event, part of the third APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM 3) and related meetings, aimed to share experiences in public-private partnership in building and adopting technical standards for the TBT agreement which was initiated by the US and joined by Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, among others. 

Speaking at the event, Chairman of the APEC Sub-Committee on Standards and Conformance (SCSC) Nguyen Van Khoi hailed the member economies for aligning technical standards with the TBT agreement and international practices, towards facilitating trade and investment in the region to realise the Bogor goals and the Action Plan to implement the 2017-2020 Lima Declaration on Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). 

Khoi, who is also Deputy Director of the Standards Department under Vietnam’s Directorate of Standards, Metrology and Quality, expressed his hope that the workshop will help cut unnecessary technical barriers to trade, bringing benefits to multilateral trade and businesses in the region, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.