Kyrgyzstan Wants to Tighten Oversight of Certification Bodies

Kyrgyzstan has decided to bring order to the product certification market. The Ministry of Economy and Commerce has submitted a draft resolution for public comment that strengthens oversight of certification bodies, revises accreditation rules, and brings national legislation into line with the requirements of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The main change is that the government will have more tools to oversee how certificates of conformity are issued. All accredited certification bodies will be required to issue certificates and register declarations exclusively through the “Single Window” information system. For violations while using the system, the Kyrgyz Accreditation Center will be able to suspend an accreditation certificate for up to six months.

At the same time, the powers of the Kyrgyz Accreditation Center itself are being expanded. In addition to conducting inspections, it will gain the right to continuously monitor the activities of conformity assessment bodies, analyze issued certificates and declarations, and suspend or revoke documents if they were issued in violation of regulations. Once the violations are rectified, the documents’ validity may be reinstated.

The requirements for certification bodies themselves are also changing. The authorities propose to close a loophole whereby several organizations effectively operate as a single entity, sharing an office, equipment, website, or even key staff members. If it is determined that a conformity assessment body does not have its own facilities and relies on the resources of another accredited body, it may be denied accreditation.

The draft also tightens the requirements for the heads of certification bodies and testing laboratories. They must have a relevant degree in a field corresponding to the scope of accreditation and at least five years of experience in the field of conformity assessment. In addition, certification bodies will no longer be able to outsource key stages of the procedure—product inspection, sample collection, and production analysis—to contractors. They will have to perform these tasks themselves.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Economy and Commerce will be granted the authority to maintain a unified registry of vehicle design safety certificates, and the national accreditation system will be expanded to include new concepts such as “scope of accreditation,” “third-party assessment,” and “accreditation scheme.”