The Department of Standards, the national standards and accreditation body, provides and maintains standardization and accreditation services for global competitiveness. Established in 1996 and governed by the Standard of Malaysia Act 1996 (Act 549), the Department of Standards is under the purview of the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry.
Overview
Standards influence all sectors of Malaysian society, and the national standardization system uses a consensus process to develop new standards, allowing manufacturers, traders, consumers, government, and others to provide input and consideration into the development process. Malaysia adheres to the WTO’s “Standard Code” on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). SIRIM Berhad, formerly known as the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia, is the government-owned company providing institutional and technical infrastructure for the government.
Standards
Working closely with other standards development agencies, Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs), as well as various Advisory Committees, the Malaysian Standard is developed and published to ensure competitiveness, quality, safety, and environmental protection. The standards are designed to be on par with international excellence and relevant to individual sectors, catering to the specific needs of the industry.
The Standards Malaysia accreditation system is in accordance with the international standard, MS ISO/IEC 17011, to ensure that the accreditation services provided are impartial, non-discriminatory, and credible. The Standards Malaysia accreditation system is set up through three operational levels: strategy and policy, decision, and assessments to ensure fair and impartial accreditation.
The Standards Malaysia Accreditation services ensure non-discriminatory review. They are open to and accessible by any conformity assessment body, irrespective of government or private bodies that fulfill the accreditation conditions. These accreditation conditions are specified and published by Standards Malaysia CABs and include the testing & calibration laboratories, certification bodies, inspection bodies, test facilities, and proficiency testing providers.
Use ePing to Review Proposed Technical Regulations and Conformity Assessment Procedures
The ePing SPS&TBT platform (https://epingalert.org/), or “ePing”, provides access to notifications made by WTO Members under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), distributed by the WTO from January 16, 1995 to present. ePing is available to all stakeholders free of charge and does not require registration unless the user wishes to receive customized e-mail alerts. Use it to browse notifications on past as well as new draft and updated product regulations, food safety and animal and plant health standards and regulations, find information on trade concerns discussed in the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, locate information on SPS/TBT Enquiry Points and notification authorities, and to follow and review current and past notifications concerning regulatory actions on products, packaging, labeling, food safety and animal and plant health measures in markets of interest.
Notify U.S., operated and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to distribute and provide access to notifications (and associated draft texts) made under the WTO TBT Agreement for US stakeholders, has reached its end of life. Per obligation under the TBT Agreement, each WTO Member operates a national TBT (and an SPS) Enquiry Point. National TBT Enquiry Points are authorized to accept comments and official communications from other national TBT Enquiry Points, which are NOT part of the WTO or the WTO Secretariat. All comment submissions from U.S. stakeholders, including businesses, trade associations, U.S domiciled standards development organizations and conformity assessment bodies, consumers, or U.S. government agencies on notifications to the WTO TBT Committee should be sent directly to the USA WTO TBT Inquiry Point. Refer to the comment guidance at https://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/guidance/guidance.cfm for further information.