./.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TBT/10.7/N/41
12 December 2002
(02-6885)
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:  English
AGREEMENT REACHED BY A MEMBER WITH ANOTHER COUNTRY OR COUNTRIES
ON ISSUES RELATED TO TECHNICAL REGULATIONS, STANDARDS
OR CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES
Notification
Under Article 10.7 of the Agreement "Whenever a Member has reached an agreement with
any other country or countries on issues related to technical regulations, standards or conformity
assessment procedures which may have a significant effect on trade, at least one Member party to the
agreement shall notify other Members through the Secretariat of the products to be covered by the
agreement and include a brief description of the agreement."  The following notification underArticle  10.7 has been received.
1. Member notifying:  BRAZIL
2. Title of the bilateral or plurilateral Agreement:  Mutual Recognition Arrangement on 
Calibration and Testing Laboratory Accreditation Procedures
3. Parties to the Agreement:  NATA (Australia), BELTEST and BKO/OBE (Belgium);
Inmetro (Brazil);  SCC (Canada);  CNACL (China);  CAI (Czech Republic);  DANAK(Denmark);  FINAS (Finland);  COFRAC (France);  DAP (Germany);  DACH (Germany);
PTB (Germany);  DATech (Germany);  HKAS  (Hong Kong, China);  NABL (India);  NAB
(Ireland);  IAJ (Japan);  JAB (Japan);  KOLAS (Korea);  RvA (The Netherlands);  IANZ
(New Zealand);  Norwegian Accreditation (Norwegian);  SAC (Singapore);  SANAS
(South Africa);  SWEDAC (Sweden);  SAS (Switzerland);  CNLA (Chinese Taipei);
UKAS (United Kingdom);  A2LA (USA);  NVLAP (USA);  ICBO (USA);
VILAS/STAMEQ (Vietnam).
4. Date of entry into force of the Agreement:  31 January 2001
5. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading): 
This Agreement concerns the conformity assessment procedures conducted by the 
conformity assessment bodies of Brazil and the Economies of the Parties to this Arrangement.
6. Subject matter covered by the Agreement (technical regulations, standards or 
conformity assessment procedures):  Conformity assessmentG/TBT/10.7/N/41
Page 2
7. Brief description of the Agreement:  Each accreditation body signatory to this
Arrangement will follow its terms and condit ions and the procedures defined in ILAC P1
document. Each body shall also maintain conformance with ISO/ IEC Guide 58 (and future
versions thereof) and related ILAC guidance documents;  ensure that all accredited
laboratories comply with ISO/IEC 17025, December 1999 (and future versions thereof) andrelated ILAC guidance documents.
Each signatory:  (i) recognises the operation of other quality management systems within
the programmes as defined in this arrangement as equivalent to its own, (ii) recommends
and promotes the acceptance of the calibration certificates and test reports from the
laboratories accredited by the other signatories as being on an equal basis with those of its
own accredited laboratories, (iii) investigates all complaints initiated by a signatory
resulting from certificates or reports issued by the laboratories it has accredited within itsaccreditation programs, (iv) notifies all other signatories as soon as possible of any
significant changes that have occurred or will occur in its status, in the operational practices
of its system or in its accreditation programs, (v) contributes as appropriate to the work of
the Arrangement Council, (vi) participates as appropriate in the meetings of the working
group(s) of ILAC, (vii) provides evaluators for the evaluation and re-evaluation ofaccreditation bodies and Regional Co-operations, (viii) co-operates with other accreditation
bodies so that the Arrangement may be extended to include other accreditation bodies and
regional bodies, (ix) uses all information in a confidential and professional manner.
8. Further information available from:  National Institute of Metrology, Standardization
and Industrial Quality-INMETRO – Brazilian Enquiry Point
Telephone: +(55) 21 2563.2821
Telefax: +(55) 21 2502.6542
Email: barreirastecnicas@inmetro.gov.br
Web-site: www.inmetro.gov.br/barreirastecnicas
International Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation (information concerning new
members)
Web-site : www.ilac.org/directory.htm