Celebrating the Accreditation Day

On Friday, 3rd July a joint session of the Management Board, Accreditation Council and Technical Committees of the Accreditation board of Serbia (ATS) was held on the occasion of celebrating 9th June, International Accreditation Day,  and 28th June, Accreditation Day in the Republic of Serbia.

The session was preceded by the20th session of the Management Board, while the following technical committees were formed during the joint session: technical committee for laboratories, technical committee for inspection bodies and technical committee for certification bodies.

The gala session was opened by Jelena Popović, Assistant Minister of Economy and Regional Development, and she wished the present participants a happy Accreditation Day and emphasised the importance of successful cooperation between the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development, on one hand, and ATS, on the other hand, in the forthcoming European integration process.

Ms Popović gave a short presentation of the MoERD activities and spoke about the recent legislative activities of the Government and Parliament. The following laws were adopted: Law on Technical Requirements for Products and Conformity Assessment, and the Law on Standardisation, while this year’s priority will be to adopt the Law on Metrology and Law on Accreditation. Furthermore, it was anticipated that the Action Plan for the Development of Technical Regulations would be implemented, whereas all the Ministries should propose a list of regulations from the areas falling within their competence.

The Assistant Minister expressed great satisfaction with the implementation of the Project entitled “Technical Assistance to the Institutions in the Area of Quality Infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia” funded by the European Commission through the budget of 1.2 million Euros as part of CARDS Project. According to her, the aim of this Project is to strengthen the quality infrastructure awareness raising in Serbia, and development of standardisation and accreditation processes. Serbia needs to adopt a large number of European standards by 2011, and new laws governing accreditation and metrology that will upgrade the entire process of integration.

The President of the Management Board, Professor Slobodan Petrović, PhD, addressed the present participants and emphasised the necessity for cooperation between the ATS and the Government as one of the pre-requirements for successful implementation of planned ATS programmes and activities.

The President of the Accreditation Council, Slavica Popović, spoke on behalf of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce about the importance of the EU projects and highlighted that this Project would help increase the level of competitiveness of our products and services when compared with the European and other markets.

She pointed out that the Project would end in October 2010 and would be implemented in two phases by regional offices of the Chamber of Commerce throughout Serbia. It will be implemented by means of 40 seminars on standardisation and accreditation. In parallel with these seminars a campaign affirming product quality in Serbia will be conducted, while the importance of standards, accreditation and conformity assessment will be promoted. “All of this will increase the cooperation between the Chamber of Commerce and ATS”, said Slavica Popović at the end of her speech.

Dejan Krnjaić, PhD, Director of the ATS, thanked all the present participants for their nice wishes implying a more successful performance of the ATS business activities and said on behalf of the ATS that there would be much more important tasks to complete such as: further development of effectiveness and clarity of accreditation process, and the work on improving the management system and its harmonisation with the European and international requirements for accreditation. On 12th February the ATS sent a request to EA to initiate the procedure for signing the multilateral/bilateral agreements in the area of accreditation of testing laboratories, calibration laboratories, and inspection bodies, said Mr Krnjaić.

He added that the ATS planned to extend its activities to new areas of accreditation on the basis of the needs defined by interested parties, primarily certification bodies certifying food safety management system, EMAS system verifiers and providers in order to implement inter-laboratory testing, and to strengthen our role in the European and international organisations for accreditation.

While talking about the activities implemented in the ATS in the previous period, Mr Krnjaić paid special attention to achieved results pertaining to accreditation schemes that had been introduced for the accreditation of certification bodies certifying management systems in keeping with the requirements of SRPS ISO/IEC 17021:2007 and for the accreditation of medical laboratories in keeping with the requirements of SRPS ISO 15189:2008.

“It is our wish to intensify the connections and communication with the Government and respective Ministries, business entities, accredited organisations and other interested parties by promoting the importance and role of accreditation in conformity assessment process in Serbia, and therefore we would like to express special thanks to the Ministry for the support they have been providing”, emphasised Mr Krnjaić.

The jubilee was celebrated once again in a working atmosphere, and during the gala session the Director of the ATS, Dejan Krnjaić, PhD, presented Professor Nada Majkić, PhD, Director of the Institute for Medical Biochemistry of the Clinical Centre of Serbia, with the first certificate on the accreditation of medical laboratories as per SRPS ISO 15189:2008.

Other members of the Technical Committees also congratulated them thereon and expressed their wish to give their contribution to the successful attainment of the planned objectives of the ATS.

Session of the Management Board

Jelena Popović, Assistant Minister of Economy and Regional Development, Dejan Krnjaić, PhD, ATS Director, and Professor Slobodan Petrović, PhD, President of the Management Board

Jelena Popović, Assistant Minister of Economy and Regional Development

Dejan Krnjaić, PhD, Professor Nada Majkić, PhD, and Professor Slobodan Petrović, PhD, holding the first certificate on accreditation of medical laboratories as per SRPS ISO 15189:2008