Ethiopia is looking to partner with Swiss company Social General Service to certify the quality of goods. The Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise is negotiating the deal to earn international recognition as an SGS agent to attract more business according to sources.
If the deal goes through the SGS and ECAE will each be able to evaluate the quality, safety and security of products as per national and international standards, for customers of either organization.
Accordingly imports to Ethiopia can be checked for conformity to standards at the country of origin by SGS on behalf of the ECAE while the ECAE can in turn evaluate exports from Ethiopia and the region for SGS.
The six laboratories operated by the ECAE are currently underutilized with only imports that are required to go through quality inspection by law such as edibles making use of the service offered by the Enterprise said an official with the enterprise.Social General Service is one of seven international firms contacted by the ECAE for a potential partnership agreement. SGS and UK based Intertake were the only two to respond to the offer from the enterprise. Negotiations with Intertake failed because it demanded the ECAE conduct an assessment of the national economy at its own expense while SGS was content to commence talks on the basis of its own assessment.
Source: Ethiopian Herald
