On Thursday 15 November 2018, Asharqia Chamber organized a workshop in cooperation with the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization that is entitled "Saber portal" at the Chamber's headquarters.
The workshop was attended by the Director General of the Regional Branch of the Authority, Dr. Tams Al Hammadi; Eng. Sultan Abu Khashim, Advisor to the Deputy Governor for Quality and Compliance in the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization; Abdulrahman Al Majid, Director General of the General Authority for Compliance; Engineer Sari Al Husseini, Project Manager; and Eng. Abdullah Al-Arifaj, Saber Platform Operations Manager.
Nasser bin Rashid Al Bajash, a board member and Chairman of the Communications and Technology Committee, said that the national economy is proceeding according to a comprehensive reform plan, which was launched by the vision of the Kingdom of 2030 that is based on the restructuring of the national economy in line with the global institutional and technological requirements, with a view to building a diversified and sustainable economy based on solid foundations and bases in its launching and more flexible and accessible in its procedures.
Al-Bajash explained that the workshop is aimed at raising the awareness of the business sector in the Eastern Region of the suppliers and owners of local factories and those interested in the Saber electronic platform which was launched by the Authority.
Saber aims to speed up the completion of the registration of products and reduce the time taken in the process of matching products and obtain the required certificates of conformity.
Al-Bajash considered the workshop as a serious step towards facilitating and accelerating procedures for the clearance of products and the reduction of non-conforming products, in addition to the services that facilitate the beneficiaries access procedures to the accreditation bodies accredited by the Authority around the world, as well as the issuance of conformity assessment certificates electronically, and other services that flow within the speed of completion and protect investors and consumers at the same time.
The workshop reviewed Saber platform as an integrated electronic platform that enables local importers and manufacturers to register their facilities in the system, and to add their own consumer product data whether imported or locally manufactured in order to obtain required certificates of conformity and certificates of transmissions electronically via the system.
This platform is integrated with the Customs Authority to contribute to accelerating the clearance of incoming shipments to the Saudi market.
This comes in line with the launch of the product safety program, which is an integrated model (legislative, technical, supervisory) that to ensure the safety of local and imported products subject to the Saudi standard specifications, and to ensure the effectiveness of the services provided by legislative and regulatory bodies to achieve safety by matching those products to technical regulations especially the basic technical requirements related to safety and health, environmental protection, energy conservation and rational use.
The platform is comprehensive of all products and is applicable to all responsible regulators in the Kingdom, in addition to stability in the fundamentals and the main elements and is flexible.
It also ensures product safety, emphasizes the need to ban unsafe products on the market, contributes to reducing accidents resulting from the use of unsafe products, reduces the amount of financial losses incurred annually as a result of the use of non-conforming products, encourages and develops local industry and stimulates investment by ensuring fair competition, and restores the consumers' confidence and satisfaction of products offered in the market.
Saber platform aims to improve the import experience, obtain conformity certificates and the required consignments for products in the Saudi market, and raise the proportion of matching products in the Kingdom, and ensure the safety of the products.
It also regulates the relationship between the business sector, counterparties, and relevant government agencies.
The workshop reviewed the general principles of the safety of products that begin with issuing the product safety system, issuing the system of specifications and quality, in addition to modernizing the system of combating commercial fraud, the evaluation of the risks of products, the study of international legislation, the issuance of technical regulations to suit the Saudi market, and then the issuance of the General Regulations for the acceptance of conformity assessment bodies, and then begin the process of acceptance of the conformity assessment bodies, and follow-up those bodies for the continuity of efficiency, in addition to measuring the current index to match the products, and raise the index of conformity to the national target of 80 percent.
At the end of the workshop, the member of the Board of Directors of Asharqia Chamber and Chairman of the Communications and Technology Committee, Nasser Al-Bajash, honored Engineer Sultan Abu Khashim with a memorial plaque.
