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Quality assurance system for enchancing competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
25/10/2001
| The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe | (UNECE) is organizing an Expert Meeting on "Best Practice in Creation Of Quality Assurance Systems for Enchancing Competitiveness of SMEs" between the 25-26 October 2001. Nearly 350 experts from 33 countries and 9 international organizations (ISO, ILO, ITC’ UNIDO, WIPO, EURO-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification European Organization for Quality, EFQM and OECD) are gathering to discuss this question, which is one of the key elements to enterprise competitiveness and world market access. |
| Malta was invited to participate in this Meeting. The | Hon Edwin Vassallo, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry for Economic Services, Mr. Gilbert Agius, Private Secretary and Mr. Noel Bartolo, Director Small Business Unit and Crafts within the Commerce Division are attending the meeting. |
| On the current world market, both manufacturers and | consumers require guarantees for the quality of products and services. Now it is no longer sufficient to provide products and services that conform to certain standards but all manufacturers and service enterprises need to demonstrate their capability to provide a continuous quality of their products and services. This is why all businesses and public organisations need to set up quality systems enabling them to guarantee that required quality is obtained at appropriate cost, and also taking into consideration ecological concerns. |
The economic globalization has a dual impact on SMEs. For some of them, globalization provides new opportunities for expansion and growth through increased international marketing possibilities. These SME’s are able to adapt and become internationally competitive. For the majority, however, globalization brings the risk that they are unlikely to survive in their present form without improving quality, competitiveness and management practices.
The Expert Meeting on Best Practice in the Creation of Quality Assurance Systems for Enchancing Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises will allow government representatives, entrepreneurs, SME business support institutions, quality consultants and auditing organizations as well as academics to learn about the latest orientations in quality assurance systems worldwide.
The aims of the Meeting are the following
- to exchange experience in UNECE member States on the various ways and approaches towards quality management, especially for SMEs
- to learn how to develop national supportive quality policies, initiatives/programmes and actions to increase the quality consciousness of SMEs in order to enhance their competitiveness
- to raise awareness about quality; and
- to exchange experience of SMEs in quality systems.
| The Expert Meeting will present the best practices in | developing national quality policies and experiences of SMEs in creation of quality systems. To promote the implementation of quality management systems, the European Organization for Quality and the European Foundation for Quality Management elaborated the excellence model, which assists SMEs to make self-evaluation of their performance and set up goals for improvement. Several winners of the European Quality Awards in 2000 and 2001 will present their achievements, like the Operation Centre Zahnartzpraxis from Switzerland, the Hungarian Burton-Apta Refractory Manufacturing Ltd and COCO-MATCompany from Greece. |
| The Round Table Discussion on "The Problems and | Solutions of Creation of Quality Systems in Order to Prepare SMEs to Meet the Challenges of the Globalization and Market Economy Requirements" will be chaired by Dr. RolfJeker, Senior Executive Vice President of the SGS-Societe’ Generale de Surveillance SA. |
| The Expert Meeting will draw conclusions and | recommendations for Governments, business communities and international organizations to make common efforts in the field of improved quality management. |
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