Overview
The government has adopted a system of “voluntary” standards and certification, whereby the importer can choose to conform their products to Georgian standards or the standards of any EU or OECD member country. If foreign standards are chosen, they must be registered by the importer in the National Agency for Standardization, Technical Regulations, and Metrology. Standards for food products are administered by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, although sometimes the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance, Tax and Customs Administration, applies differing sanitary and phytosanitary standards regulatory interpretations upon the commodity’s arrival.
Standards
The main standards organization in Georgia is the National Agency for Standardization, Technical Regulations and Metrology. Conformity Assessment is one of the functions of the National Agency. Partners of the Agency are ISO, ASTM, IEC, CEN, CENELEC, BIPM, COOMET, IRSA. According to the Governmental Order of March 7, 2013, the United States is among 37 EU and OECD counties that have technical regulations that the Georgian government accepts. As part of the DCFTA agreement, Georgia is increasingly adopting non-science-based EU standards instead of international and Codex standards in the food and agricultural sector.
Testing, Inspection, and Certification
If the importer chooses to comply with Georgian standards, there are about 100 test laboratories accredited in the following fields in Georgia:
Electrical products;
Products from the chemical, perfume, and pharmaceutical industries;
Food, drinking water, mineral water, and alcoholic and non‐alcoholic beverages;
Composition of soil and mineral resources;
Oil and mineral oil products;
Glass products;
Paints and dyes;
Building materials; and
Radio engineering products.
Publication of Technical Regulations
Publication of technical regulations is the responsibility of the National Agency for Standardization, Technical Regulations, and Metrology. Regulations are posted on the Agency’s page and/or published in Georgian government’s online legislative herald, Matsne.
Use ePing to review proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures.
The ePing SPS and TBT platform (https://epingalert.org/), or “ePing,” provides access to notifications made by WTO Members under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), distributed by the WTO from January 16, 1995 to present. ePing is available to all stakeholders free of charge and does not require registration unless the user wishes to receive customized e-mail alerts. Use it to browse notifications on past as well as new draft and updated product regulations, food safety and animal and plant health standards and regulations, find information on trade concerns discussed in the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, locate information on SPS/TBT Enquiry Points and notification authorities, and to follow and review current and past notifications concerning regulatory actions on products, packaging, labeling, food safety and animal and plant health measures in markets of interest.
Per obligation under the TBT Agreement, each WTO Member operates a national TBT (and an SPS) Enquiry Point. National TBT Enquiry Points are authorized to accept comments and official communications from other national TBT Enquiry Points, which are NOT part of the WTO or the WTO Secretariat. All comment submissions from U.S. stakeholders, including businesses, trade associations, U.S domiciled standards development organizations and conformity assessment bodies, consumers, or U.S. government agencies on notifications to the WTO TBT Committee should be sent directly to the U.S. WTO TBT Inquiry Point. Refer to the comment guidance at https://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/guidance/guidance.cfm for further information. This guidance is provided to assist U.S. stakeholders in the preparation and submission of comments in response to notifications of proposed foreign technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures. Notify U.S., a service formerly maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide access to notifications, is no longer operating.