Faisalabad to Get Testing Lab as PSQCA Vows Export Push

Key Points:

PSQCA will set up a testing laboratory in Faisalabad.
Recommendations to upgrade obsolete standards will go before the federal cabinet.
A joint awareness seminar has been announced for the last week of November.
A help desk and a focal person have been promised for the business community.

FAISALABAD: Faisalabad will get a testing laboratory for its industries and recommendations to upgrade obsolete product standards will be placed before the federal cabinet for approval.

Director General of the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) Dr Syeda Zia Batool made the announcements while addressing the business community at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

She said the authority was taking immediate steps to raise exports through quality products. Setting standards for various items and upgrading those falling obsolete were among its tasks, she said.

Dr Batool announced a joint awareness seminar in the last week of November and said work on the authority’s digitisation was also under way. She invited stakeholders to submit their recommendations so that approval could be sought from the cabinet.

She appreciated a proposal to shift the authority’s local office back to the chamber complex and asked its local head, Zakaullah, to submit a formal proposal. A help desk and a focal person would be nominated to resolve the business community’s problems, she assured the gathering.

Replying to a question, she said a provision existed for third-party outsourcing of tests. Tests of items such as lithium batteries could be carried out at private laboratories under it.

Earlier, FCCI Senior Vice President Mian Muhammad Saeed urged immediate digitisation of the authority. He said the proposed testing laboratory would facilitate industrialists not only in Faisalabad but also in the surrounding districts.

He assured full cooperation for shifting the authority’s office to the chamber complex. Land for the laboratory could also be pursued in the M3 Industrial City, he said.

At the end, Mian Muhammad Saeed presented an honorary shield of the chamber to Dr Zia Batool. Executive members Muhammad Umar, Brigadier (retd) Aamir Sohail, Asad Ali and Dr Tahir Waheed took part in the question-and-answer session.

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