Cuban Standards on Priority Policies and Programs approved

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 13 (ACN) So far this year, the National Bureau of Standards (ONN) has approved 80 Cuban Standards on the country’s priority policies and programs in times of pandemic, as a reduction in the number of cases is becoming noticeable.

In statements to the press, ONN Director-General, Sc. D. Nancy Fernández Rodríguez, said that the Technical Standardization Committees (CTN) remain active online or engaged in semi-presential work to develop these tools.

She particularly highlighted their usefulness in the fields of food production, clinical laboratories, construction, oil, agricultural machinery, and information technology in the midst of the fight against COVID-19.

“These standards facilitate the design of safe, reliable, quality products and services and help increase productivity in value chains and minimize errors and unnecessary expenditures,” she pointed out. “Around 70% of them are harmonized with prestigious international or regional standards, contained in a portfolio of 4,530 of these documents.”

The main products for export and import, as well as the substitutes of the latter are standardized, and ONN keeps working on those yet to reach that level for marketing as well as on others of great demand.

Regarding the MSMEs, the Director General pointed out that their needs were identified as of 2012 in order to meet the necessary requirements and good practices and ensure effective and efficient results within the framework of the law.

“To this end, we are working to establish task forces for Conformity Assessment, chaired by the ONN, and Consumer Protection, headed by the Ministry of Domestic Trade,” she added.

ONN’s website provides a package of 30 Cuban Standards whose implementation will contribute to the individual and collective fight against COVID-19, since they address risk management as part of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) family, said René Fernández Infante, director of Standardization of the institution.