Introduction

Development and transparency in international economic toward “borderless state” have pushed many countries to establish trade-based cooperation organization in order to protect and maintain their trade interest. Moreover, in order to protect domestic economic from the abundance flow of foreign products and services, many national authorities use non tariff instruments such as standard and conformity assessment. In this regard, the role of standard and conformity assessment becomes very important in either regional or international trade.

These are shown by the increasing on standard and conformity assessment activities within regional organization like ASEAN Consultative Committee on Standard and Quality (ACCSQ) and Sub Committee on Standard and Conformance (SCSC-APEC). In facing these dynamic trade situation, all nations in the world must involve in the agreement on trade-related arrangements. Consequently, a commitment to be in line with those mechanism is becoming unavoidably necessitates to all countries.

In the case of Indonesia, standard and conformity assessment has became a focus on the government priorities in national development program since nineteen nineties decade. Although National Standardization Council of Indonesia (DSN) was officially formed in 1984 through Presidential Decree, the integrated standardization activities, where all stakeholders have started to actively involve, have just commenced in the late 1991, soon after the issuance of Government Regulation on Formulation, Implementation and Control on Indonesian National Standard (SNI).

Existence of the institution on conformity assessment, on the other hand, has been remarked when National Accreditation Body of Indonesia (KAN) was established in 1992.

The outcomes of standard and conformity assessment system will have to be ideally beneficial to all stakeholders, in particular government as regulatory authorities. Accordingly, the development of standard and conformity assessment program in Indonesia is also directed towards facilitating regulatory authorities to implement standard and conformity assessment – based regulation (technical regulation).

In this paper, certain topics are briefly discussed which include the current status on conformity assessment system in Indonesia followed by program on implementing mandatory SNI through technical regulation which involves the role of accredited  conformity assessment bodies (CAB) in such mechanism.

Current Status of Conformity Assessment in Indonesia

KAN was officially formed in 1992 through the Decree of State Minister for Research and Technology and the body used to be responsible to DSN. The KAN organization was renewed by Presidential Decree when DSN was changed into National Standardization Agency of Indonesia (BSN).

In 2001, in accordance with the issuance of Government Regulation on National Standardization in the year 2000, the Presidential Decree on KAN has again been renewed. The main change is the separation between KAN as accreditation body and BSN as national standard body. According to the new Presidential Decree, KAN is responsible directly to President of the Republic of Indonesia. KAN is established with the purpose to become the only accreditation body in Indonesia which fulfill the criteria of being credible, independent and transparent. The main function of the body is to establish accreditation system in Indonesia and to grant accreditation in certain fields including testing and calibration laboratories, certification bodies and inspection bodies.

Although accreditation system in Indonesia has been operating since 1992, the first accreditation was only granted in 1994 to an ISO 9000 quality system certification body.

Currently, KAN has been operating accreditation system for testing and calibration laboratories, certification bodies which consist of ISO 9000 quality system certification bodies, ISO 14000 series environmental quality system certification bodies, personnel certification bodies, product certification bodies, HACCP certification bodies, and inspection bodies.

In the field of testing and calibration laboratories, KAN uses ISO/IEC 17025 as the basis of its accreditation requirements and KAN itself runs the accreditation system based on ISO/IEC Guide 58. As of March 2003, 166 testing laboratories have been accredited, whereas at the same time KAN has granted accreditation to 52 calibration laboratories.

In order to achieve recognition on its laboratory accreditation system, KAN has been joining the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) and has been the signatory for APLAC – Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) for testing laboratory since May 2001. The wider MRA under International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) has also been signed by KAN for testing laboratory in the same year.

Furthermore, the current status of accreditation for various certification bodies which have been operated by KAN based on ISO/IEC Guide 61 are as the following:

·         Accreditation for ISO 9000 quality system certification bodies uses ISO/IEC Guide 62 as the basis of accreditation requirements and, as of March 2003, 14 such certification bodies have been accredited as either domestic certification bodies or foreign ones.  KAN has also been the signatory for Multi Lateral Arrangement for Pacific Accreditation Cooperation and International Accreditation Forum (PAC MLA and IAF MLA) since the year 2000.

·         Two environmental management quality system certification bodies have been accredited by KAN based on its fulfillment to ISO/IEC Guide 66. Now, KAN is in the process of entering into PAC MLA for this scheme and initial peer evaluation is about to be carried out in the middle of 2003.

·         Product certification is now highly required by the market, however this scheme is relatively new of being operated by KAN. Only one product certification body has been accredited based on ISO/IEC Guide 65 until March 2003. There are many more product certification bodies which are applying for accreditation.

·         In line with the government strategic program on ensuring safety of food being consumed by the Indonesian people, the need on quality assurance in food industries to implement HACCP are highly required. Therefore, accreditation for HACCP certification bodies is also needed. As of March 2003, three HACCP certification bodies have been accredited by KAN based mainly on criteria issued by Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).

·         Personnel certification bodies are accredited based on EN 45013 and currently KAN has granted accreditation to three bodies which are ISO 9000 auditor, oil and gas manpower and personnel responsible for sampling certification bodies.

Moreover, in line with the increasing needs on the competence inspection bodies in various areas, particularly at the entry points of export and import, KAN has also been operating accreditation for inspection body based on ISO/IEC 17020. As of March 2003, 21 inspection bodies have been granted with accreditation status from KAN. In addition to testing and calibration laboratories, APLAC has also been commencing a new scheme for MRA in the area of inspection body accreditation and KAN is planning to join the MRA in 2004.

Mandatory SNI and the Role of Accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies in its Implementation

According to the Government Regulation on National Standardization, the only national standards are Indonesian National Standards (SNIs). Institutionally, BSN is responsible for the formulation of the SNIs, whereas the task on accreditation is given to KAN. SNIs are formulated in accordance with the nationally agreed mechanism of standard formulation and normally made to be align with similar regional or international standards whenever possible.

After having been stipulated by BSN as SNI, the standard is implemented on a voluntary basis. This means that voluntary SNIs are used as market reference to facilitate the interest of producer and customer in ensuring the agreed specification between two or more parties. In certain circumstances, however, SNIs might be implemented on mandatory basis where SNIs are directly related to human safety, security, health or environmental conservation as well as certain economic consideration.

Stipulation of SNIs as mandatory standard is under the authority of Ministries such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, etc and certain Agencies that function to regulate their respective responsibilities like the Agency for Drug and Food Control.

Once an SNI is stipulated as mandatory, the standard becomes a requirement of the market. Mandatory SNIs are put in effect in a non-discriminatory manner which means that they are valid for both foreign imported goods or domestic ones.

As of March 2003, 82 SNIs have been stipulated as mandatory in which 74 SNI are from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), 7 SNI are from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) and, currently, the Ministry of Agriculture (MA) constitutes one mandatory SNI.

Basically, mandatory SNIs are implemented by the provision of an SNI Mark on the products after having been proven to comply with the standards. These processes bring into a consequence that the government has to provide respective competent technical infrastructures like testing laboratories and product certification bodies.

During the last two years, MTI has stipulated almost 10 Ministerial Decrees which are related to products under mandatory SNIs. In general, the decree regulates the requirements to comply with SNI for certain strategic products such as fertilizer and wheat flour. Consequently, independent conformity assessment through accreditation and certification is required to execute technical regulations.

In this regard, MTI employs KAN accredited product certification bodies and testing laboratories as far as they are available. When those conformity assessment bodies have not been available yet, the Ministry appoints certain bodies to carry out the respective required certifications. However, those appointed bodies must seek KAN’s accreditation and it has to be achieved within a certain time frame, generally one year after its appointment.

A similar scheme has been implemented by MEMR due to the mandate stated in the Electrical Energy Law at which they are responsible for safety of the electrotechnical products. As Indonesia has not joined the IECEE-CB Scheme yet, the recognition by the Ministry as the regulatory authority relies mainly on the SNIs which are basically adopted from IEC standards.

Similar to what the MTI does, MEMR also has stipulated some Ministerial Decree related to the safety of electrotechnical products where the Ministry also employs KAN accredited product certification bodies as well as testing laboratories whenever available.

Very recently, the Ministry of Agriculture has stipulated a technical regulation relating to one mandatory SNI of raw sugar. In the regulation, although the Ministry has appointed 20 testing laboratories to support raw sugar quality control, it is also stated that those 20 testing laboratories must seek KAN accreditation no later than two years after being appointed. It is important to note that as of March 2003, KAN has just accredited one testing laboratory with the scope of raw sugar testing.

As stipulated in the Government Regulation on National Standardization, mandatory SNIs are put in effect in a non-discriminatory manner which means that they are valid both for foreign imported or domestic goods. This further means that any foreign imported products must comply with the SNIs provided that the SNIs of the respective products are implemented as mandatory.

When conformity assessment of the imported products has been done in the country of origin, regulatory authorities need an assurance on the competence of technical infrastructures involved like certification bodies and testing laboratories.

With regard to this, the existing Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) established among accreditation bodies in the regional and/or international level are used as the basis of recognition of product certificates or test reports accompanying the products. This reflects that regulatory authorities in Indonesia normally accept the existing MRAs relating to standard and conformity assessment.

In line with the Law in Decentralization which is newly established by the Government of The Republic of Indonesia, some parts of the authority of local resources management that used to be managed directly by the central government, including those relating to standard and conformity assessment, are now mandated to provinces and county territories. This condition leads to the authority of provinces and counties to establish their own local regulation.

Accordingly, in order to anticipate the new technical regulations or standard and conformity assessment related policies established by regulatory authorities, including those established by provinces and county authorities, which are expected to be in accordance with the common principles on standard and conformity assessment, BSN is now in the process of developing a Good Regulatory Practices. The guidance is basically adopted from the similar guidance issued by APEC.

Conclusion

In line with the implementation of global market, the role of standard and conformity assessment is becoming very important as the consequence of the agreement on Technical Barrier to Trade (TBT). In order to facilitate the era, national standards are ideally formulated with reference to regional and/or international standards. This is to easily recognize each other on respective national standards among countries or parties involved.

In order to ensure that certain standards have been complied, conformity assessment mechanism, which is expected to be credible, independent and transparent, is obviously required. Moreover, the available scheme of Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) in the area of standard and conformity assessment should be used as the basis of recognition on product certificates and/or test reports when they are needed by trade transaction crossing inter-country territories. In addition, as technical regulation is, in fact, the rule of the game on how products or services shall be in compliance before they are put into the market, they should ideally be applicable and be non-discriminatory.

By Kukuh S Achmad

National Accreditation Body of Indonesia (KAN