Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council organizes Partners Forum 2022

• Council’s achievements reflect its distinguished and pioneering growth march since inception in 2009
• Launches updated guideline for service infrastructure specifications for Abu Dhabi
• Quality infrastructure projects are significant pillars of the government's `Ten Principles for the Next Fifty Years’

In an opening speech H.E. Dr. Hilal Humaid Al Kaabi, Secretary-General of the Council, said: "The aim of the Forum is to strengthen the Council’s partnerships across local and federal government agencies and the private sector to achieve its strategic objectives of developing quality infrastructure in Abu Dhabi to meet the aspirations of the leadership of the country and to enhance Abu Dhabi’s regional and international competitiveness in various vital sectors.”

In his speech, he reinforced the Council's commitment to continue developing the quality infrastructure of Abu Dhabi, and to provide leadership and technical reference across standardization, conformity assessment, upgrading specifications and quality of local products and services, and enhancing consumer safety and protection to ensure competitiveness of key sectors of the emirate.

 "Thanks to the Council's broad powers, it has been able to exercise   legal national roles and responsibilities across the quality framework in multiple areas in cooperation with partners, and have implemented many strategic initiatives and projects that enhanced performance efficiency,” he said.


His Excellency said that the Council brought all government testing laboratories under one umbrella of the Central Testing Laboratory, paving the way for the establishment of an advanced technical infrastructure in testing and conformity assessment services.  “On the other hand, the Emirates Metrology Institute of the Council has grown to become the National Institute of Measurement in the UAE. The Institute’s official representatives are also in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), and other official international metrology forums.”

 "The Council has established a system for controlling products traded in the markets of Abu Dhabi to ensure quality, and to withdraw products that do not conform to national specifications. This has raised the level of safety, public health, the environment, integrity and fairness of markets, thereby protecting the interests of consumers and public entities," he said.

The Council also has been keen to unify the specifications, standards and technical guides adopted by Abu Dhabi government agencies, and it is in line with this commitment that the guideline for the specifications of the infrastructure for services in the Emirate has been issued, containing 253 technical documents, 39 products’ conformity programs and 58 individual occupation matching programs.

"The quality infrastructure projects have received generous support from Abu Dhabi’s leadership leading the Council to play an important role in working towards achieving the government's future directions listed in the "Ten Principles for the Next Fifty Years,” His Excellency said. He also stressed in this context that the Council was committed to inculcate the concept of quality across all beneficiaries through its services which protects their interests and safety, while raising the level of quality of products in the markets, empowering the national economy and the industrial sector.

The Secretary-General shared his aspiration to expand the relationship with the Council’s   strategic partners by implementing various national initiatives and programmes, the most important of which would be issuing and updating technical documents, conformity programs, harmonization of specifications and conformity assessment services.


On the sidelines of the Forum, His Excellency also launched the third edition of the guideline for service infrastructure specifications in Abu Dhabi, a comprehensive reference resource of technical documents, including specifications and standards for infrastructure. He also reflected on the Council's keenness to expand private sector partnerships as an essential arm of the national economy, and this has been done by delegating many of its services to local laboratories in Abu Dhabi. In this context, he also pointed out the Council’s service delegation agreement with (G42) Healthcare Company last year, supporting the expansion of the capabilities of the laboratories of the life sciences departments of the Central Testing Laboratory.

In his concluding remarks, His Excellency said the Council's keenness to strengthen its partnerships helped promote integration in line with the aspirations of the leadership of the Abu Dhabi government to advance the country’s ranking in global competitiveness reports.

At the Forum, the Council also reviewed its significant achievements since inception, notably the development and harmonization of technical documents. The Council issued 354 technical documents, 49 product conformity programs, 20 compliance programs for individual services, and verified 85,000 legal measurement tools across Abu Dhabi. .

The Council also inspected nearly 670,000 restricted products offered in the local market, developed the smart `Mana’ system which is in place since 2018 at the federal level, and recalled over 600 products that did not conform to mandated requirements, numbering to  nearly 70,000 items, and verified 6,000 Pre-packaged products since the start of the service in 2012.

The Council also provided assessment services to about 193 conformity assessment bodies and authorized 26 laboratories across construction, building materials and the environment, delegating these entities to  provide services of the Central Testing Laboratory. The Council provided  473 main inspection services and 3,250 subsidiary inspection services across food and beverages, water, radiation, building and construction materials, environment, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetics, and agriculture, in addition to carrying out 4.5 million laboratory tests since the laboratories were merged in 2014.

The Council’s Emirates Metrology Institute calibrated 3,662 measuring instruments since 2017, and implemented 497 inter-comparison programs. Thanks to the Institute, the UAE became the first in the region in the number of inter-comparisons conducted, and second in the inter-comparisons recorded in the BIPM database.

The Council also succeeded in registering the Central Testing Laboratory by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a member of the global soil laboratories network – GLOSOLAN - and in getting the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory selected as a regional entity to standardize work methods for soil tests.