The Ministry of Economic Planning and Industrial Development (MEPID) in collaboration with the West Africa Quality Programme (WAQP) recently held a day's information sharing seminar on the National Measurement System at the Alliance Franco Gambienne along Kairaba Avenue.

The theme of the seminar was "In support of science and technology".Speaking at the occasion, Ndaye Naffie Ceesay, the acting principal economist at the Ministry of Economic Planning and Industrial Development, said the seminar is part of The Gambia government's efforts in serving both the producers and consumers of this nation by establishing a Standards Bureau. Services.

Highlighting the expections of the Bureau, Ceesay said they include meeting the needs of industries and laboratories as well as making secondary working standards available to the nation's regulatory authority for weight measures."The enactment of the Bill will bring about the setting-up of the Standards Bureau which will compose of three departments; namely Standardisation, Conformity Assessment and Metrology," she noted.

She went on: "Services of the Standards Bureau will enable the private sector to have better control of their products, ability to consistently meet quality requirements and thus get more access to the global market". She informed that supporting measures towards a fully fledged quality infrastructure are already underway with the creation of the national standards body that will facilitate the setting up of the ongoing construction of the metrology laboratory in Abuko, which will be the custodian of the primary measurement standards from which secondary standards will be derived.

Ceesay further stated that discussions in the seminar are very relevant to them due to its focus on their daily activities to achieve industrial efficiency and growth in their respective companies. She therefore urged participants to fully participate in the seminar, raise their concerns and expectations to derive utmost benefit from this exchange of information.  
    
Lamin F. Bayo, market research analyst and information officer of the Association of Gambian Manufacturers, said the operation and implementation of the International Standards Organisation and the MEPID are considering the ministry's concern to get them prepared so that they can have Gambian manufacturers also matching standards and producing products that are of international standards.

He said they will be grateful to the Weights and Measures Bureau if they are able to visit their companies so as to compare imported products to locally manufactured products for quality assurance and conformity, to enable a level playing field for both manufactures and importers.Bayo finally thanked the Weights and Measures Bureau, the MEPID and the WAQP for their hard work.

Joseph Ndene, the director of the West Africa Quality Program, welcomed the participants on behalf of his organisation noting that they are looking forward to having a lot of discussions among themselves to enable them clarify some of the difficulties they are facing and also to be informed on the current initiatives and the best practices in what they are doing.He urged the participants to take the forum seriously.