Describes the country's standards landscape, identifies the national standards and accreditation bodies, and lists the main national testing organization(s) and conformity assessment bodies.
Last Published: 8/5/2019

Overview

Eswatini Standards Authority (SWASA) was formed by the GKoE through the Quality and Standards Act (10) 2003, and is a parastatal under the auspices of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade.

This unit would act as a standards institution, including offering customer protection through quality assurance and helping industries on matters related to standardization and quality control.

The mission of the Authority is to promote quality principles and facilitate the use of standards to reduce technical barriers to trade and investment, ensure a sustainable Swati economy, and safeguard the nation's health, safety and environment. It is governed by a ten-member council whose function is provide strategic and policy direction to the benefit of the Swati people through an improved standard of living.
 

Standards

SWASA (www.swasa.co.sz) has been working on the development and adoption of close to 30 standards, 7 of which are in the process of being gazetted in preparation for their publication and availability for use. Given that the country did not have any national standards, the Authority has been helping local companies source standards, from neighboring National Standards Bodies.

It has been established through research that South African National Standards sourced from SABS are most commonly used by local companies. Another commonly used standard is ISO 9000 and some companies are in the process of implementing HACCP. So far only one company is known to be implementing ISO22000 and is accredited to the standard. On the other hand it has been noted that local SMEs have very little knowledge on the use of standards and their perceived benefits.
 

Contact Information

Eswatini Standards Authority  www.swasa.co.sz

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 web site 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.

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