Introduce MRA
By law, countries set technology guidelines for certain products to follow, in order to protect the safety of the citizens, public health and the environment. The guideline for communications equipment is called the communications equipment technical regulation and the process for certifying that the equipment has complied to it is called communications equipment certification.
The communications technical regulation is adopted to protect the health and property of the citizens, protecting the communications network and maximizing the network resource utility, all confirmed through the certification process.
However, the communications certification is based on the different backgrounds of politics, economy, society, culture and technology of each country. This works as a major trade barrier. Therefore, MRAs between countries are being brought out to overcome this difficulty in trade.
A bilateral MRA means that they mutually agree to acknowledge the certification provided by the other country when engaging in trade. In other words, each country recognizes the “conformity assessment” of the other country as being the same as their own, reducing the cost and time it takes to go through another assessment and encouraging trade between the countries.
Conformity assessment means to assess whether the product, procedure and service of a product is in compliance with the technical regulations, conducted through testing, inspecting and marking.
APEC TEL MRA Outline
Purpose
The purpose of the MRA is to increase the market accessibility and eliminate or reduce non-tariff barriers. However, this is not an attempt to make a single standard or guideline for every country.
Main Object
Wired, wireless, EMC and electricity safety test of information and communications equipment
Content
It constitutes of mutual acknowledgement of conformity assessment (first phase: test report, second phase: certificate), designation of conformity assessment bodies (mutual designation of test or certification institutions) and information exchange (each member country discloses their technical standard list and give others a chance to comment on it). In other words, the importing country can accept the test report for a product tested by the exporting country according to the importing country’s regulations, or the importing country can accept the certificate for a product certified by the exporting country according to the importing country’s regulations.
Procedure
The designation institutions of the exporting country accredit or designate conformity assessment bodies (test or certification institutions) that can conduct conformity assessment in compliance with the importing country’s technical regulations. They could also acknowledge other institutions to do the same task, the certification of conformity assessments. The list of the institutions is notified to the importing country, which importing country inspects and recognizes.
A business looking to export their products can be issued a test report at the conformity assessment body (test lab), which is located in the exporting country, recognized by the importing country and go through the certification procedure of the importing country (first phase of MRA) or it can immediately start selling their product with a certificate issued from the conformity assessment body (certification institution) (second phase of MRA).
Before MRA
- Manufacture
- >
- Export
- >
- Test
- >
- Certification
- >
- Marketing
Exporting Country
Importing Country
After First Phase of MRA
- Manufacture
- >
- Test
- >
- Export
- >
- Certification
- >
- Marketing
Exporting Country
Importing Country
After Second Phase of MRA
- Manufacture
- >
- Test
- >
- Certification
- >
- Export
- >
- Marketing
Exporting Country
Importing Country