CROSQ, the Caricom Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality, is happy to report that 21 Caricom standards have been endorsed by its Council recently.

Earlier last year, Project Manager for the Inter-American Development Bank/Small and Medium Enterprises (IDB/SME) project with CROSQ, Dr. Michael Seepersaud, indicated that 34 standards were being developed, and would be completed by April 2010.  Eighteen (18) of these standards had been finalised at the time, and 16 more were to be reviewed by year end.

While in Barbados last year, Derek Omar, the then Chairman of the Council of CROSQ and Executive Director of the Trinidad & Tobago Bureau of Standards, also noted that CROSQ was at the time reviewing the process by which it develops standards throughout the region, so that it can produce better quality standards, in a faster time frame. CROSQ, he said, was on target to producing 20 standards for the first time, dedicated to the small and micro enterprise sector in the region.

Of late, CROSQ has reported that 21 Caricom standards were circulated to member states for voting and moved forward in the Standards Development Process at the Fifteenth Meeting of the CROSQTechnical Management Committee (TMC) held in September 2009. At this Meeting, the standards were reviewed and recommendations made to the CROSQ Council, for either voluntary or mandatory adoption in member states.

The Council approved the Caricom Standards as recommended by the TMC when they met in Barbados at the CROSQ Secretariat in October, 2009. The standards approved were:
• Specifications for the grading of 10 agricultural products, namely sweet peppers, tomatoes, hot peppers, cabbages, pumpkins, oranges, grapefruits, pineapples, bananas and mangoes;
• Specifications for cassava bread; gold articles; coconut oil; carbonated beverages; garbage bags; botanical cosmetics; and fruits and vegetable juices and fruit nectars; and
• Codes of practice for food hygiene; wooden craft items; good manufacturing practices for SMEs; and frozen fruit pulp and purées.

CROSQ also reported that two (2) additional  standards were also reviewed by the CROSQ Editorial Committee in August 2009 in Jamaica, both of which were already approved by the Council for Economic Trade and Development (COTED), for mandatory adoption by member states.

They were the revised and edited version of the Caricom Regional Standard Specification for Safety Matches, originally developed in 1999, and the Caricom Regional Standard Specification for Grading and Quality Requirements of Table Eggs.

To keep SMEs in the loop and up to date with standards applicable to our country, the Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards with assistance from the IDB/SME project will be hosting workshops on March 17-18 at a venue to be announced. These workshops will address the Regional standard for Labelling of Pre Packaged Food, the Code of Practice for Packaged Water, Specifications for Packaged water and General principles of Food Hygiene.

To pre-register your or your organisation’s participation in the 17-18 March activities kindly contact the Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards, Corner Redcliffe Street & Corn Alley, P.O. Box 1550, St. John’s, Antigua (W.I.) or Telephone 462-2424 or email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Adapted from the Barbados Advocate January 22, 2010