The Philippines' Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) - through its national standards body, the Bureau of Product Standards, (BPS) - is providing its business community with a new service that aims to accredit quality system certification and inspection bodies beginning January 1995.

According to DTI Assistant Secretary Renato V. Navarrete, the national accreditation scheme will provide a process for recognizing the competence of the growing member of private certifying bodies operating in the Philippines. The scheme will also introduce a mechanism ,hereby companies can later on enjoy international recognition f their ISO 9000 certificate.

To provide the private sector at the earliest possible time a pool of BPS accredited quality system certification bodies, the Bureau began to receive and evaluate applications for accreditation at the start of 1995.

The rules and guidelines to implement the BPS accreditation scheme are contained in DTI Department Administrative Order No. 5, Series of 1994. This scheme covers the accredita- tion of quality and inspection bodies.

Among the salient features of this national policy are the transitory provisions covering the change of the Bureau’s role as a quality certification body to that of an accreditation body and the organization of the Philippine Conformity Assessment Accreditation Council (PCAAC) to govern the scheme. The Department Order mandates the Bureau of Product Standards to be the sole agency that ,ill operate the national accreditation scheme for quality system certification bodies under the policy direction of the PCAAC.