Case Study

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) operate single Market Regulatory System

GCC Member states United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sultanate of Oman, State of Qatar, State of Kuwait and the Republic of Yemen operate a single regulatory system to control products in the GCC market.

The System is comprised of two sets of Technical Regulations (TR):

1) Horizontal Regulations applied to all products wishing to access the GCC Single market which are:

a) GCC Conformity Marking TR.

b) The General TR for product Safety.

c) Conformity Assessment Modules.

d) Notified Bodies Selection and Notification.

e) Market Surveillance technical Regulation

f) Product Liability technical Regulation

g) Rapid Exchange of Information System (AGEL)

2) Vertical Regulations each addressing a Category of Products including:

a) Toys (Approved)

b) Low Voltage Devices (Approved)

c) Other products (in process)

Accreditation is considered an essential tool for the implementation of the regulatory system as it is used in all regulations to assure the competence of notified bodies.

Further information on the regulations and accreditation is available respectively from the GCC Standardization Organization (GSO) and the GCC Accreditation Center (GAC).