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| Centre for Accreditation and Standards Training (CAST) |
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| Centre for Accreditation and Standards Training (CAST) is a PSDP project initiated by Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC). PNAC has recently achieved Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) status of Asia Pacific Lab Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC). In order to enhance the credibility and to be competitive in the world market, it is imperative that PNAC continue its efforts in conducting training programs so that maximum numbers of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) are prepared by these trained human resource for accreditation and a pool of assessors/technical experts is created in the country. The establishment of CAST would therefore, institutionalized PNAC efforts to make our exporters competitive and reduce the 'Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)' which predominantly play a vital role in future world trade. |
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| Following are some of the objectives to be achieved by establishing CAST : |
- To create awareness among the industry, industrial policy makers, academia, service providers, exporters, consumers etc about the benefit of adopting quality improvement practices by arranging seminars in-house as well as at the premises of different stakeholders in major cities of the country.
- To promote awareness through print and electronic media as well as printing of awareness material and dissemination of information.
- To arrange workshops and training courses in the field of metrology, standards, testing and quality (MSTQ), accreditation compliance issues for gaining market access.
- To develop pool of assessors/technical experts for PNAC inline with the international requirements.
- To develop master trainer for conducting the accreditation related courses.
- To conduct research studies on MSTQ.
- To develop software for Labs Management.
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| To enhance the credibility and to be competitive in the world market, it is imperative that PNAC continue its efforts in conducting training programs so that maximum number of CABs is prepared by these trained human resource for accreditation and a pool of assessors/technical experts is created in the country. The establishment of two years project CAST would therefore, institutionalized PNAC efforts to make our exporters competitive and reduce the 'Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)' which predominantly play a vital role in future world trade. |
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| The project is in the process of approval with Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. |
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