Changing approaches to compete in world economy
The importance of standards is on the rise. It is because in today's World Trade Organization (WTO) system, standards are acting as the core means for facilitating international economy and promoting a free and fair global trade.
Actually, the WTO, through its Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement, is demanding that member countries abide by the principle of One Standard, One Test, and Accepted Everywhere.
A standard war for the sake of world market preoccupation is in full swing. Furthermore, 80% of the world trade volume is under the influence of international standards, according to the 1999 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) statistics.
In conjunction with this, Administrator Choi Kap-hong, Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS, www.kats.go.kr), Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Energy, underscores in an exclusive interview with The Korea IT Times that standards are the core of national competitiveness as the infrastructure of industry and trade development.
He insists that standardization has an effect on technology development and that standards are the means to ensure satisfactory compliance with health, safety, and environment requirement.
Changing roles of standards
Touching upon the fact that the role of standards is changing, the Administrator said that since the launch of the WTO in January 1995, the international standard has been emerged as a means to reduce trade barriers.
The four roles of establishing standards are: first, to underpin product compatibility; second, to be a means which allows the maintenance of the minimum quality; third, to be a tool which makes complex things simple; and fourth, to provide technology information.
However, Choi explains: "Beyond these four roles, the importance of standards is being stressed even more than ever in the past, for instance, Social Responsibility has emerged as a new international standard."
The veteran Administrator, who took office recently, notes that in regards to standards: "In an environment in which the roles of established standards have changed, it is important to stress out the vision and capability of the KATS in order to provide the nation with higher quality technology standard service."
For this end, it is said that the Agency is establishing its middle and long-term development strategy to be called KATS 235, according to Choi. Choi explained that KATS is establishing 5 policy goals for consumers, corporations, and government agencies. These goals have two aims: improving trade and industry competitiveness and improving national living standards.
Choi elaborated on the 5 policy goals the Agency pursues: first, the establishment of an innovative national standard system; second, the establishment of a consumer standard security management system in order to live a higher quality life; third, the strengthened corporate innovation support for value creation; fourth, the reinforced international standardization activity which corresponds to global environment change; and fifth, the maximization of organization capacity by fostering a good working atmosphere.
To expedite the KATS 235 project, the KATS has prepared three innovation propulsion strategies: which are QUIVICE, a customer satisfaction program; SPIRIT KATS, an organization innovation program; and RESOP, a resources management optimization commission.
To carry out such new mission the KATS has reshuffled its structure to one that is more customer-oriented with strengthened support for the corporate standard technology innovation.
Commitment to international standards
Concerning the importance of international standard collaboration activity, Choi stressed: "Standardization is not being attained by our efforts alone, but is possible by reinforcing international standard activities."
For the purpose of strengthening such an international standard collaboration activity, the KATS has been enlarging participation support for domestic standard experts in international standardization conferences.
Accordingly, P member joining rate, which holds vote in international standardization organizations, has increased from 50.4% in 2001 to 78.4% in 2005. The foothold of Korean activity in international standardization organizations is tentatively to be reinforced, since Korea became a national member body of the two biggest international standardization organizations: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
Furthermore, Korea holds the chair of ISO Committee on consumer policy, Choi said. The Administrator adds that the KATS is also devoting many efforts to cope with international environment change such as WTO/TBT and technical regulation. It has also been stressed out that the importance of the international standardization cooperation with surrounding countries is increasing, for example, the standardization education to ASEAN countries since 2002.
As regarding activities for letting Korean standards reflect into world standards, the KATS has the core technology's international standardization under way by establishing a New Growth Industry International Standardization Five Year Plan on December 2003. This is in connection with its Next-Generation Growth Engine Industry Nurturing Policy.
Choi has committed himself to reflect 300 core technologies into international standards till 2008 and to nurture private specialized institutions such as the Korean Standards Association as an international standardization stronghold for the purpose of international standardization activity base enlargement by industry.
The Administrator points out that beyond an era through which standard has improved the quality of goods, nowadays standards act as a tool to remove trade barriers and further as an information tool for corporations in a Relation Technology (RT) age. He also says that nowadays only by securing standards can our corporations survive in a globalized world market.
