The Ministry of Economy has signed today donation agreements with 11 accredited laboratories that will additionally strengthen their technical capacities for certification and standardisation of products.

The equipment donated today to accredited laboratories, was procured with the help of the EU pre-accession funds. It is worth EUR5 million and will further strengthen the technical capacities of the laboratories and facilitate access to the European market for the manufacturers of technical products. In addition, it will reduce the costs of certification services and product testing. The equipment will enable the content analysis of heavy metals, organic pollutants, waste gases and other chemicals in water, air and soil. Additionally, it will enable analysis of fuels and their quality, and safety testing of electronic equipment used in places with higher explosion risks, such as mines, oil refineries or gas stations. The testing of construction materials and electric and electronic equipment are also examples of how the donated equipment will be used.

The Head of Operations of the EU delegation in Belgrade, Steffen Hudolin said that every EU Member State and aspiring country must implement these regulations and enable their economies to produce safe products. “The equipment we donate is important for environment protection, for workplace safety and for Serbian construction industry as well. This is extremely important for the opening of the negotiating chapter 1 and it represents just a fraction of what the European Union and the Ministry of Economy, together with other Serbian institutions in this field, do in the process of accession of Serbia to the EU. The same, high safety standards must apply to the whole market, both European and of the candidate countries,” said Hudolin.

“What we’re doing today is very important for our economy because it improves the conditions for the production of safe products, both for domestic and the demanding European market,” said Assistant Minister Jovan Petrovic.

Petrovic pointed out that the Ministry of Economy had fully transposed the European standards and regulations concerning the safety of technical products – machines, small appliances, electric and electronic equipment, elevators, personal safety equipment etc. The products made in line with these standards bear the Serbian conformity mark with three letters A, arranged in a triangle. This mark is a proof of compliance with the most modern European standards in the field of technical products safety.

“Everything we have done so far in regards to the transposition of regulations and system development, enables businesspeople and small and medium-sized enterprises to keep up with trends so they can enter the markets worldwide. Also, through one of the programmes within the Decade of Entrepreneurship, we are co-financing up to 50% of the costs of certification, standardization and the like.”

Petrovic explained that the purpose of these activities of the Ministry of Economy is to place safe products on the market and to protect the environment, because the final goals are the customers and their safety. “These are the key aspects and that is why the Ministry of Economy is starting the campaign ‘Safety has no price’ through which we want to encourage citizens, the consumers, to develop a habit of checking, searching for and buying the electric products with the Serbian conformity mark whenever they’re shopping for small appliances or other technical devices – just like the consumers in Europe look for the famous CE mark. If everybody acquires this good habit, it will deliver a major blow to the grey economy,” said Petrovic.

As a result of the EU-Ministry of Economy project “The acquisition of equipment necessary for improvement of conformity assessment services,” three video clips have been produced, warning about the safety of the products we buy. They can be found at http://tehnis.privreda.gov.rs/vesti/novosti/558/bezbednost-nema-cenu.html