APEC Addresses Concerns about Consumer Product Safety

Consumer product safety standards and practices in the Asia-Pacific region will be the subject of a capacity building workshop to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 10-12 November 2008.

The Leaders of APEC's 21 member economies made it a priority in their 2007 Declaration "to develop a more robust approach to strengthening food and consumer product safety standards and practices in the region, using scientific risk-based approaches and without creating unnecessary impediments to trade."

The workshop will bring together key stakeholder groups from government and the private sector in consumer product safety, standards and practices. Participants include industry, regulators, manufacturers, importers and consumer organisations.

The broad objective of the workshop is to expose participants to the latest thinking and best practices on managing generic consumer product safety regulation, including products bans, recalls and safety standards.

In particular, it will address the challenges posed in managing global production networks and the development of effective tools to address current and emerging aspects of consumer product safety.

As the focus is on capacity building, the workshop will provide participants with the necessary information and skills to design and implement generic consumer product safety regulatory systems that are appropriate for their Economies.

Participants may also consider developing a framework to help guide APEC economies to better address their product safety issues and to better manage and assess risks associated with the manufacture and distribution of consumer products in and emanating from the APEC region.

The sharing of the latest information from recent international fora on consumer product safety, in particular for those APEC economies that do not have the capacity to attend such meetings, will also be a core benefit of the workshop.

Co-hosted by Australia and Malaysia, the workshop will be held at the CITITEL Mid Valley Hotel, Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur.