Accra, June 17, GNA - The Ghana Standards Board (GSB) on Tuesday received an international accreditation for the measurement and calibration services in the areas of mass, temperature and pressure carried out by its metrology laboratories. The accreditation certificate, which was conferred by the Deutscher Kalibrierdienst (DKD), a German accreditation body, would enable institutions that are accredited by GSB to be internationally recognized.

The certificate was presented at a conference on "Competence and Technology for Safer Food and Increased Agricultural exports" underway in Accra. The conference forms part of an on-going Ghanaian-German cooperation between GSB and the German National Metrology Institute (PTB) under a project dubbed "Quality Assurance of Agricultural Products through Improved Metrological and Testing Services". The 10-year project is aimed at establishing a consolidated and adequate quality infrastructure to guarantee the quality and safety of food and agricultural products.

Mr. Adu Gyemfi Darkwa, Chief Executive of GSB, who received the certificate, described it as one of the outputs of the project. He said before the Board was awarded the accreditation, facilities in the laboratories were expanded, relevant equipment procured and training of staff to acquire the needed skills in Germany was facilitated in line with international requirements. Mr. Darkwa explained that accredited metrology laboratory was the type, which held good technical resources and competent personnel with experience to perform measurement and calibrations. Mr. Alex Inklaar, the German Project Consultant said the main scope of the project was two folds - export facilitation for agricultural products and consumer protection. These, he said, involved staff training and helping management to organize their laboratories for their works to be internationally recognized.

Mrs. Jana Orlowski, Deputy Head of Mission, German Embassy, said countries like Ghana needed to apply international rules on standardization to enable her to adequately compete on the international market.

She said the lack of enough regulations in Ghana at present affected consumer safety, agricultural and general food safety, adding that was why the German government had come in to assist Ghana to strengthen her export opportunities. Mr. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSI, said a good quality infrastructure was one subject that the whole world was emphasizing as effective means of removing technical barriers to trade and thereby pave way for easy access and entry to the international market. He indicated that an overview of Ghana's agricultural production and exports suggested that producers had very little access to reliable and recognized impacts of competitiveness of Ghana's international trade. He said the lack of adequate calibration laboratories for examination of agricultural products also constituted an obstacle to the effective protection of domestic consumers against potentially dangerous foodstuffs. "It is therefore necessary that Ghanaian foods and agricultural products adhere to conformity assessment procedures to ensure compliance with regulations of importing countries." He thanked Germany for doing their research in Ghana and coming out with the project which embraced several aspects of the food and agriculture trade including poverty reduction, environmental protection and role of women in food and agricultural produce marketing.