The Council of the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) is headed to Montserrat in April, for four intensive days of meetings to chart the path forward for the regional development of quality
issues.
The four-day meeting begins on April 4, 2016, with an opening ceremony to be addressed by Montserrat’s Hon. Minister of Agriculture, Trade, Lands, Housing and the Environment, Claude Hogan; Chairman of the CROSQ Council, Mr. Jose Trejo of the Belize Bureau of Standards, and the CROSQ CEO, Mr. Deryck Omar. The opening ceremony will be held at the Montserrat Cultural Centre Auditorium in Little Bay, commencing at 8:45 a.m.
The CROSQ Council meets twice annually, and this meeting will deal with a number of areas including the proposed Regional Quality Policy, the development of a video series on the progress of quality infrastructure in the region, the regional approach to conformity assessment matters, as well as status reports from technical officers of the organisation on the progress of the 10th European Development Fund Technical Barriers to Trade programme, among other regional quality infrastructure projects.
CROSQ was in the CARICOM Member State of Montserrat just last September, for a meeting of the Standards Technical Management Committee at which time an invitation was extended to host this meeting of the Council.
CROSQ is a network of the 15 National Standards Bureau of the Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). It consists of the CROSQ Council, comprising the directors of all the bureau; the CROSQ Secretariat, headquartered in Barbados, and a number of Special Technical Committees.
Quality Infrastructure refers to the services of standards and technical regulations, metrology (the science of weights and measurements), accreditation, quality assessment and certification that make it possible for goods and services to be traded and accepted on the international market, and make them safe for local consumption and use as well.
The National Standards Bureau are the guardians of standards and quality in each Member State, ensuring that these services are provided and developed.
