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Dr. Michael Seepersaud, Project Manager of the CROSQ/IDB-IMF??Project,??addressing the audience at the??National Awareness Seminar on Good Management Practices on Monday (at Bagnall’s Point Gallery, Pelican Village).

Another step was made towards making local and regional micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) more viable, when the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI) hosted its National Awareness Seminar on Good Management Practices at Pelican Village last Monday.

The workshop was a collaborative effort between BNSI, CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) and the Barbados Small Business Association.?? In his feature address, Project Manager with CROSQ, Dr. Michael Seepersaud, spoke about one of his organisation’s recent efforts, CRS 14:2010, which is focused on providing regional MSMEs with the opportunity to improve their service standards.

"Small island states cannot afford to have all elements of the quality infrastructure, it’s very expensive and development takes years…so CROSQ is building a regional model.?? We’ve been not only building on this regional standardisation process, but we’ve developed a regional model for accreditation and measurement," Dr.Seepersaud explained.

??CRS 14:2010 was developed through the CROSQ/IDB-MIF ???Promoting Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Competitiveness through Technical Standards’ project, which drew from standards established by the International Standard Organisation (ISO) – namely ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004.?? It addresses quality management systems and environmental management systems, respectively.?? Adoption of the standard would benefit those MSMEs that need to demonstrate the ability to consistently meet requirements in quality, environmental and occupational safety and health.??

CRS 14:2010 is one of 19 CARICOM Regional Standards to be adopted by BNSI as a National Standard this year.?? Others include CRS 16:2010 Botanical Cosmetics, CRCP 5:2010 Food Hygiene and a range of standards for various fruit and vegetables.

For further information on regional and national standards, contact CROSQ at 622-7670, BNSI at 426-3870, or log on to http://www.crosq.org/ or http://www.bnsi.bb/.??

nekaelia.hutchinson@barbados.gov.bb

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