ISO Secretary-General Addresses World Economic Forum

Published: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - 23:00

ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden recently spoke at the World Economic Forum, emphasizing the importance of standards in the world economy. The forum was held Jan. 26–28 in Davos, Switzerland, and was attended by several world leaders in industry, government and trade. Bryden pointed out that international standards are an essential tool for facilitating trade, spreading knowledge and sharing technological advances and good manufacturing practices. He highlighted ISO’s close collaboration with the World Trade Organization and its Action Plan to increase awareness of standards in developing countries.

“It’s important that international standards bring a positive contribution to globalization,” Bryden said. “The fact that both developed and developing countries take a growing interest in the work of ISO and are increasing their participation shows that ISO standards can provide practical solutions. They are both feasible and being developed now.”

Bryden also spoke about ISO’s development of standards relating to greenhouse gases, which will regulate the emerging trade of emission rights. Other illustrations of ISO’s contribution to a sustainable world that the ISO Secretary-General discussed included the development of a management system standard for food safety (ISO 22000) and a number of work items related to water services, energy, quality management, environmental management, information technology and medical devices.

For more information, visit www.iso.org.

 

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