Metrological Support to International Trade, MetroTrade
Project Description
Metrotrade – Metrological support to international trade – was a 3½-year project carried out in the period August 2000 to December 2003.
The main objective of Metrotrade was to identify and remove impediments to international trade coming from a non-acceptance of the technical competence of existing laboratories, i.e. promote mutual acceptance both of national measurement standards and calibration certificates issued by national metrology institutes.
The project was structures in six work packages, further subdivided into 17 tasks. The first work package was project management. The content of the other five work packages are mentioned below.
Work package 2, Analysis of current metrological infrastructure:Ten cases on impediments to trade with a possible metrological background related to physical/chemical measurements were described. Eight cases, where calibration and test procedures are not fully harmonised between the EU and its major trading partners, were described as examples on international trade impeded by a lack of international acceptance of test and measurement results.
Work package 3, Metrological support:To establish an appropriate metrological framework to help remedy impediments to the successful development and implementation of international trade agreements, two guidelines were made. One was “A guideline on how to interact with the Consultative Committees, Regional Metrology Organisations, and proficiency testing schemes to initiate missing comparisons to demonstrate equivalence for the support to trade”, and the other was “Guideline on how to influence the harmonisation of test and calibration methods - An analysis of standardisation structures and mechanisms of harmonisation”. In addition to the guidelines, the booklet “Metrology – in short” was issued to promote a common understanding of metrology.
Work package 4, Training and education:The main target was training and education of regulatory bodies, national metrology institutes and professional organisations. Three different workshops were conducted on 1) traceability and quality systems, 2) regulatory issues and 3) traceability and uncertainty in testing. Proceedings from the workshops have been published on the project web-site www.metrotrade.dk.
Work package 5, Dissemination and exploitation of the Metrotrade results:During the project period Metrotrade results was presented on 31 conferences and workshops, plus published in 15 articles. A special guidance was made with the purpose to exploit the results of the MetroTrade in practice by using the networks of EUROLAB, EUROMET, EURACHEM and others, and thereby facilitate international trade.
Work package 6, Interregional collaboration:In the second half of the project a new task was needed to identify and document where there were problems related to technical barriers to trade arising from metrological impediments within or between regions. It was conducted as a global, primary web-based, detailed survey. Metrotrade results and activities are available on the Metrotrade web-site www.metrotrade.dk, which will be transferred to EUROMET on www.euromet.org late spring 2004. The web-site had 17.000 hits during the project period.
Workshops
Following a joint RegMet/MetroTrade workshop at IRMM in Brussels (May 2002), two further MetroTrade workshops have taken place: In Portoroz, Slovenia (September 2002) and at BAM, Berlin (January 2003).
The project has been reformulated in response to the dedicated call no. 7/99 topic I.12.
The contract with CEC/DG TRADE has been signed (Ref. no. is the contract no. G7RT-CT-2000-5004)
The project addresses one of the key issues in world trade which is the continuing lack of acceptance or recognition of measurement results or certificates provided by national metrological institutions. These technical barriers to trade still exist despite the fact that - for all practical purposes - results were shown to be equivalent world-wide, if properly measured. The project will support essential networking activities within the EU which will significantly improve cohesion both within the EU as well as between EU and its trading partners, through provision of a framework in which there will be mutual acceptance both of national measurement standards and of calibration certificates issued by national metrology institutes. The project will be co-ordinated with the CIPM MRA-initiative and benefit to its implementation.
The project will result in a infrastructure based on the following outputs: 1) Identification of impediments to mutual acceptance 2) Report on traceability 3) Report on test and calibration methods 4) Construction of an information site 5) Guideline on how to initiate comparisons, how to harmonise test and calibration methods, how to ensure uniform understanding of common issues and to improve dialogue between parties 6) Workshops for training 7) Dissemination of result at the NCSL conference.
Further Information
The work will be performed in close contact with BIPM and NIST to ensure the compatibility with their work on the key comparison database