Key stakeholders in the export industry are working to strengthen the national quality infrastructure (NQI) to upgrade the quality and standards of export products important to achieve export growth target of 6.6 percent to 8.8 percent to a high of $93.64 billion this year.
The Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) 2015-2017 has identified key strategies to boost the competitiveness of the sector, to also include removing unnecessary regulatory impediments to the movement of goods and delivery of services, raise the productivity and competitiveness of Philippine enterprises and improve exporters’ access to finance.
“The imperative to raise the consciousness of producers on the quality and standards of goods and services cannot be overemphasized. Exporters gain access to foreign markets by complying with technical and legal requirements of these markets,” the plan said.
Domestic industries can, likewise, compete against imports if these products meet international standards, it added.
The PEDP pointed out that there is no national body now tasked to coordinate at least 12 regulatory bodies engaged in standards development, testing, calibration, inspection, certification and coordination.
It said these institutions regard consumer protection as its primary mandate, and developing standards to support industries as secondary.
“Worse, the consciousness on product quality and standards is still quite low among domestic producers, as many of them still consider compliance with technical regulations and standards as additional cost rather than investment to attain competitiveness,” the plan added.
To squarely address these issues, the PEDP underscored the need to create a strong NQI with private-sector support, increase the resources of regulatory agencies for standards-writing and launch campaigns to beef up private-sector support for NQI institutions and policies.
Systems for voluntary labeling and certification toward national branding should also be established.
The plan said industry stakeholders can likewise, institutionalize programs that will assist companies in key and emerging export sectors to implement standards.
Areas encompassing NQI include standardization, metrology, testing, quality management, certification and accreditation.
NQI is considered as a unified system for trade facilitation as it reduces costs by developing internationally recognized schemes through standardization and accreditation.