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: 1/9/2020

Overview
Under the national system of quality, UNIT (Uruguayan Institute of Technical Norms, http://www.unit.org.uy) was nominated as the national normalization organization, LATU (Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay) as the national institute of metrology, and OUA (Organismo Uruguayo de Acreditación) as the national accreditation organization.

The MERCOSUR standards association, AMN (Asociación MERCOSUR de Normalización) composed of the standards institutes of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, develops and harmonizes standards.  The executive secretariat of the AMN is in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Voluntary standards are developed in 16 technical committees and deal mostly with steel, cement and concrete products, and electrical safety.  Several hundred standards are at different stages of preparation or in draft.

Regional technical regulations are developed or harmonized by the MERCOSUR governments in sub working group three in the following fields:  automotive, foods, metrology, safety issues for electrical products, toys, and pre-measured products.  Separate working groups, such as those on telecommunications and health issues, also focus on mandatory technical requirements for their sectors.  Approved MERCOSUR regulations are not automatically applicable in each country; each country must adopt harmonized regulations for them to be applicable.  The member countries generally adopt all MERCOSUR regulations, though at different speeds.

Standards
In Uruguay, UNIT carries out certification and establishes technical norms, and is the exclusive representative of ISO (International Organization for Standardization), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), and the World Quality Council (WQC) in Uruguay.  It is also a member of AMN (Asociación MERCOSUR de Normalización), created within the framework of the general objectives of achieving regional integration among the signatory countries of MERCOSUR, AMN has the task of establishing harmonized standards to be used within the region.

UNIT mainly transposes standards developed by other organizations such as ISO, IEC, and Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) for the national standardization system.  OHSAS is a British standard for occupational health and safety management systems.
LATU (Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay) is the officially approved agency which controls standards and quality control of imports and exports.  A national quality committee reviews and recommends issuance of ISO 9000/9001 certificates, if warranted.

Testing, Inspection and Certification
There are certain products, such as foods and beverages that require special certification from governmental offices prior to being sold in the market.  The importing company must request the inspection of the product by LATU (Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay) to ensure that it complies with bromatological regulations before receiving the Commercialization Certificate that allows its sale. Pharmaceutical or cosmetics products also need special authorizations from Ministry of Health in order to be sold. The certifications required depending on the product can last at least for three years.

A manufacturer can only place a product in the Uruguayan market, when it meets all applicable requirements and has completed a conformity assessment procedure.  The government states that its main objective is to help ensure that unsafe or otherwise non-compliant products do not find their way to the market.  Such services are provided by LATU or private companies such as Swiss-based SGS (an inspection, verification, testing, and certification company).

There is no international recognition between Uruguayan and U.S. testing laboratories, so the certification of U.S. products must be done by domestic Uruguayan laboratories, which control regulatory requirements.  U.S. testing laboratories can do test reports on certain products such as toys, but this does not nullify the need for the certification required by LATU.

Product Certification
UNIT and ASTM signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2001.  UNIT is the official certification office for all industries except beef, which is the National Institute of Beef (INAC - http://www.inac.gub.uy).
Depending on the type of product or service, special certifications may be requested from other entities such as LATU, UNIT, the Ministry of Health, or the Ministry of Education.

There are other private companies, such as SGS and LSQA-Quality Austria, which certify products and processes and management systems and offer a series of internationally recognized quality standards.

Accreditation
The national accreditation body is Organismo Uruguayo de Acreditación (OUA).  The OUA has been a member of the ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) since 2010 and of the IAF (International Accreditation Forum) since 2011.
The OUA signed the Multi-Lateral Recognition Agreement (MLA) of the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation (IAAC).  As a result, Uruguay considers IAAC as the accreditation body for testing and calibration laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025), the certification body for the quality and environmental management system (ISO/IEC 17021), and the product certification body (ISO/IEC 17065).

Publication of Technical Regulations
Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade 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(ies) 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 U.S. WTO tbt inquiry point housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

UNIT has been named by the Uruguayan government as the entity in charge of publishing and promulgating all technical regulations and coordinating their elaboration.  They also must keep a register of updated regulations. 

Contact Information
Organismo Uruguayo de Acreditación
Phone/Fax:  + 598 2 9081653
Web:  www.organismouruguayodeacreditacion.org

 

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