Overview

Cambodia adopted the Law on Standards of Cambodia in 2007 to improve the quality of products, services, and management; raise and rationalize production efficiency; ensure fair and simplified trade; rationalize product use; and enhance consumer protection and public welfare.  Several government bodies and agencies share oversight and control over these standards.

Standards

The Institute of Standards of Cambodia (ISC) was officially established in 2008.  ISC drafts laws and regulations, conducts production surveillance, provides supervision and technical support, provides training and consultancy to help companies register and certify their products, disseminates technical regulations, and develops national standards for products and management.  The ISC does not have a technical team to develop standards for laboratory analysis techniques. Generally, Cambodia uses the ISO/IEC guide 21-1 and 2:2005 as guides for adopting international standards as national standards or technical regulations.  The Ministry of Health is charged with prescribing standards, quality control, distribution, and labeling requirements for pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and cosmetics.  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is responsible for agricultural products. The National Standards Council (NSC), established in 2009, leads coordination in the development of national standards; advises the ISC on the criteria and procedures pertinent to the preparation, approval, acceptance and selection of the standards; and considers and approves proposals for Cambodian standards prepared and recommended by ISC to develop, adopt, review, revise, or cancel Cambodian standards.  The NSC is chaired by the Minister of Industry and Handicraft, with representatives from relevant technical line ministries including the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; the Ministry of Health; and the Ministry of Commerce.  Overall, the NSC is the national secretariat, which oversees, regulates, verifies, and adopts or certifies standards proposed by each technical ministry.  The mandate of the NSC is to ensure quality and standard conformity with national and international standards.

Institute of Standards of Cambodia (Ministry of Industry and Handicraft)

Testing, Inspection and Certification

Conformity Assessment

The ISC develops national standards, performs conformity assessment, inspects and controls the quality of laboratories, and certifies product and service standards and compliance for locally consumed goods and export goods.  It helps rectify minor errors in standards compliance.  The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries are each responsible for implementing their own regulations on standards, safety, and quality of respective imports, exports, and locally consumed goods.  On the whole, the ISC has a mandate to supervise and provide technical support to the line ministries to help these ministries develop their standards to conform to national standards.  The ISC also tests for compliance with mandatory Cambodian standards, conducts conformity assessment and production surveillance, and monitors and verifies the compliance of the technical regulations of each respective ministry/agency.  Other services provided include education, training, consultancy, and dissemination of technical information on standards and quality.

The Industrial Laboratory Center of Cambodia (ILCC) under the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft provides testing services for microbiological and chemical examination of food products.  Other testing service labs available in the country include Pasteur Institute for medical biology testing, environment and food safety testing; Bureau Veritas, for textile testing services; SGS, providing textile testing services; and Intertek, providing testing services for consumer products and testing and inspection of bulk commodities such as petroleum, chemicals, minerals, and food and agricultural products.

Product Certification

The responsibility for establishing industrial standards and certifications resides with the ISC.  Certification includes product standard compliance, product safety standard compliance, and production and service management system compliance.  Not all imports require a certificate or license.  Importers of regulated products, however, must request a certificate or a license before importing.  To date, the ISC has not strictly inspected standard compliance or regularly certified product standards for both locally consumed goods and products for export. To date, the ISC has never suspended, withdrawn, or revoked any product certificate or license.

Accreditation

Responsibility for accreditation services was transferred from the ISC to the General Department of Industry in the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft.  The Ministry has begun offering accreditation services to certification body though it has not yet granted accreditation to any standards agency. 

Publication of technical regulations

Law, rules, and regulations concerning standards are available at the ISC homepage. Hard copies are published in the Royal Gazette by the General Directorate of Royal Gazettes and Computer Services of the Council of Ministers.

Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to notify to the WTO proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures that could affect trade.  Notify U.S. (www.nist.gov/notifyus) is a free, web-based e-mail registration service that captures and makes available for review and comment key information on draft regulations and conformity assessment procedures.  Users receive customized e-mail alerts when new notifications are added by selected country or countries and industry sector(s) of interest and can also request full texts of regulations.  This service and its associated website are managed and operated by the USA WTO TBT Inquiry Point housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Contact Information

Further information can be obtained from the website of the Institute of Standards of Cambodia.

The U.S. Embassy point of contact on standards-related issues is Economic/Commercial Specialist Sokros Chann: 

(855) 23 728 158

ChannS@state.gov