The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), Fernando Jairoce, said on Monday 16 October that 800 complaints of low-quality products were registered in the first half of this year, with the main focus on household appliances.
Fernando Jairoce was speaking during the seminar celebrating World Standards Day, which takes place on 14 October each year. The event was organised by the MIC through the National Institute for Standardisation and Quality (INNOQ), in partnership with the Promove Comércio project, under the theme “A shared vision for a better world”.
On the occasion, the Ministry representative explained that in order to mitigate the number of imported products with deficiencies, “we are going to start the Conformity Assessment Programme for imported products, which aims to assess their conformity at the point of origin before they are exported to Mozambique”.
The source explained that the programme is intended to reduce the proliferation of counterfeit and substandard products in terms of quality and conformity, a situation that poses a threat to the environment, public health and safety, as well as consumer rights. Citing data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the source said that “more than 70 per cent of the products sold in most establishments in Maputo city are counterfeit”.
“The implementation of this programme will also allow quality products to circulate in the country and reduce unfair competition, fundamental factors for the competitiveness of the private sector, attracting investment and making a greater contribution to national industrialisation,” he said.
The Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA) believes that access to services, such as standardisation and certification, is an essential tool for conveying the credibility of the products and services of Mozambican small and medium-sized enterprises.
Standardisation and certification are one of the requirements demanded by multinationals in their contracting processes for goods and services, constituting a permanent challenge for the business sector. “However, with regard to these benefits, namely access to new markets, it can be seen that many companies are not fully aware of the role of standardisation in terms of facilitating transactions, reducing costs, accessing new markets, guaranteeing production quality and fluidity in the sale of products and services,” revealed CTA vice-president Prakash Prehlad.
He added that on the issue of certification in particular, the number of national companies benefiting from access to certification services is still below 5 per cent of the private sector, with the main causes being the cost of the process, the lack of information on the part of companies about its importance and the procedural mechanisms for access.
According to INNOQ, 36 companies have been certified since October 2022, compared to 29 in the same period in 2021, representing an increase of 24%.
It should be noted that, during the occasion, around 40 companies and products received quality certificates in the technical standards NM ISO 9001 (Quality Management Systems), NM ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) and NM ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System).
World Standards Day is celebrated on 14 October on the initiative of the International Standards Organisations, namely the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The date was established in 1970 to recognise the collaboration between the thousands of experts from the public and private sectors around the world who dedicate their time and knowledge to developing and improving international standards. It is on the basis of these international standards that each country draws up its national standards, which, in the case of Mozambique, are called NM (Normas Moçambicanas).
