The Seychelles Bureau of Standards (SBS) has developed and adopted over 70 standards addressing the specificities of various industries, products and processes over the past 15 years.

This was revealed by Mr Irené Joseph, the managing director of SBS, while speaking to the press on the occasion of World Standards Day which was celebrated on Monday.

Mr Joseph said the theme chosen for this year – "One standard, one test accepted everywhere" – further emphasised the need for all countries to develop and adopt international standards which were recognised globally. While both national and regional standards were likewise important, internationally adopted guidelines, he said, contributed to broader acceptance of products or services in the global commerce. 

The Pointe Larue-based bureau normally follows the International Standards Organisation (ISO) guidelines to provide a wide range of tests pertaining to the formulation of standards or assessment of quality of manufactured or imported products. Such tests, Mr Joseph said, were important to determine whether locally-made products were of acceptable international standards or whether the country was importing products made according to the specificities laid down by ISO or the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union).

SBS, Mr Joseph said, was in the process of working with standards bureaux in other African countries through SADC (Southern African Development Community) and COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) to help harmonise all standards practices for the African region, so that all countries abided by international guidelines.  This will further enable the African continent to open its market and get its products accepted globally.

SBS has over the years formulated standards of products and services in the industrial and commercials sectors, in areas like food and pharmaceutical, chemical, electrical, electronic, mechanical and construction.

The bureau is also well-equipped with laboratory technology to provide tests for instance to analyse different components in food and beverages like micro-biological quality, nutritional value, additives, pesticide, metallic and bio-chemical contamination, physio-chemical tests on petroleum products, laundry and toilet soaps and physical tests on construction materials to assess their quality.

In cases where SBS is unable to verify certain parameters of a test, the bureau normally collaborates with standards bureaux in either England, South Africa, Singapore and Mauritius.

Mr Joseph said the national bureau worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to monitor the implementation of standards and to ensure the quality of, for example, agro-alimentary products, and together assess and make recommendations in the case of products they discover do not meet the acceptable criteria of standardisation.

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