MALAWI STANDARDS BODY WARNS LOCAL BUSINESSES TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF PRODUCTS OR…
LILONGWE - Malawi’s local businesses have been told in the face that they should forget about penetrating international markets if they continue producing goods of poor quality that do not meet the required global standard.
The country’s standards body, the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) has expressed concern over the substandard products that Malawian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) produces and said such a development is stagnating the country’s export base.
MBS Director of Quality Assurance Services Steve Kamuloni has since invited the local businesses to take advantage of the services of the Bureau which he said has a number of interventions to ensure that the local businesses, especially the SMEs up their game.
“SMEs play a very important role in the social-economic development of a country, but if they do not have the capacity to understand the standards and requirements needed to achieve certification of their products, there is no way they can penetrate the international market,” said Mr Kamuloni.
MBS has since embarked on industry awareness campaign on the development of a robust standardisation, quality assurance, accreditation and metrology (Sqam) project.
He said through Sqam, the MBS among several interventions, offers technical assistance for development of quality management systems and food safety management systems as well as food and personal hygiene training.
“Those we have assisted are now producing quality products ready for certification,” he said. .
–NYASATIMES.