FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1999-07-07

International meeting to focus on quality management

The Standards Council of Canada will host the 1999 plenary meeting of the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC) from July 24th to 31st in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC) is an association of accreditation bodies and other interested parties whose objective is to facilitate trade and commerce among economies in the Asia Pacific region.

Its ultimate objective is the creation of a global system that grants international recognition of registration of management systems and certification of products, services, personnel and other programs of conformity assessment. PAC members are signatories to a multi-lateral agreement that means member countries will recognize each other's quality systems accreditation as equivalent to their own.

The meeting will include a discussion about extending the scope of the multi-lateral agreement from accreditation of quality management system registrars to include accreditation of product certification organizations and environmental management system registrars. There will also be a peer evaluator workshop for PAC assessors, working group meetings and a multi-lateral agreement signing ceremony for eligible new members.

Representatives of Australia and New Zealand, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Peoples Republic of China, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States will attend the conference.

The Standards Council of Canada is the federal Crown corporation that oversees the National Standards System.

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