G/SPS/GEN/1953  
 
28 September  2021 
(21-7241) Page: 1/4 
Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures  Original: English  
 
 
GSO REPORT  ON SPS ACTIVITIES  
GSO REPORT TO THE WTO  COMMITTEE ON  SANITARY AND PHYTOSANITARY MEASURES  
The follow ing communication, received on 23 September  2021, is being circulated at the request of 
the secretariat of the  GCC Standardization Organization  (GSO). 
 
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1  INTRODUCTION  
1.1.  GCC Standardization Organization (GSO)  is a non -profit (intergovernmental)  Standardization 
Organization, established by the resolution of the GCC Supreme Council  (22nd Session, Muscat, 
Oman, 30 -31 December 2001) and assumed its operation in May 2004 with membership of the 
governments of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the Kingdom of 
Saudi  Arabia,  and the United Arab Emirates . 
2  GSO MISSION  
2.1.  The GSO mission is to assist the States of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the 
Gulf (GCC)  to achieve the objectives set forth in its Charter and in the GCC Economic Agreement by 
unifying the various standardiza tion activities and following up implementation and compliance with 
the same in cooperation and coordination with the standardization bodies in the member States to 
develop the production and service sectors, foster the intra -GCC trade, protect consumer s, 
the environment and public health, enhance the GCC economy and its competitiveness and meet 
the requirements of the Gulf Custom Union and Gulf Common Market.  
3  GSO STRUCTURE  
3.1.  The Ministerial Committee for Standardizations affairs (MC) : is the highest authority of 
GSO, vested with all powers relating to its functioning. The MC consists of respective Ministers of 
the Commerce, Industry, and Investment in GCC member States.  
3.2.  The GSO Technical Council (TC) : consists of the respective Directo rs of the National 
Standards Bodies (NSBs) of GSO member States.  
3.3.  The Presidency : is headed by the President and consists of GSO Professional Staffs to 
facilitate the activities of GSO.  
3.4.  The GSO Steering and Technical Committees (STCs) : consist of technical experts 
representing each National Standards Body of the member States . The STC s report to the GSO 
Governing Board and are responsible for the planning, coordination and monitoring of all the 
technical work of GSO in standards, conformity assessment, metrology, and notification.  
4  GSO STRATEGY 2021 -2025  
4.1.  GSO has defined its Strategic Plan for the year 2025 , approved by the Ministerial Committee 
for Standardization, and that is to be the trusted regional organization of excellence in 
standardization activities, and the first enabler for the Gulf Common Market. To achieve its vision, G/SPS/GEN/1953  
 
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  GSO relies on the successful implementation of three main strategic themes, the first of which is 
organizational excellence - "Accurate implementation of GSO 's activities and operations with high 
efficiency, lowest costs and on time, to provide value -added services to GCC member States". 
The second theme is being a regional organization pioneer– where GSO becomes a major and 
reliable reference in GCC member States for standardization activities by positioning  itself within the 
global map of standardization organizations and bodies , and building effective strategic partnerships 
to support trade, industry and economy in GCC member States . Finally, the third theme i s to 
strengthen the economic integration among the G CC member States  – by way of GSO's contribution 
to achieving a common Gulf market and economic growth for member States through 
standardization activities, conformity procedures, and unified and effective  control over products, as 
the first enablers of the Gulf Common Market. Moreover, all GSO programmes, projects, and 
activities have been aligned with these themes.  
4.2.  The GSO 's Strategy consists of 10 strategic objectives, 22 strategic key performance indicator s 
(KPIs) and  11 strategic program mes. 
5  STANDARDS AND METROLOGY  
5.1.  GSO has developed more than 26 ,524 Unified Gulf Standards and Technical Regulations , of 
which 65% are adopted from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 20% of those 
standards are adopted from the International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) as endorsement, 
4% of food standards are adopted from Codex Alimentarius standards, and the rem aining standards 
are adopted from other regional and international organizations. GSO adopted ISO/IEC directives 
for technical work as a bas is for its own directives to ensure that GSO technical committees follow 
international practices in  the standards de velopment process. At present , there are 44 GSO/TCs and 
TCs sub -committees representing all GSO member States and covering most of the GCC sectors.  
5.2.  GSO throughout its technical committees translated more than 750 ISO standards in different 
categories. Rema rkable cooperation is taking place between GSO TC07 & ISO TC 67 (Materials, 
equipment and offshore structures for petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries) which 
resulted in issuing ISO 16961:2015 and ISO 18797:2016 which are based on GSO 2057/2 010 and 
GSO 2273/2012.  
5.3.  GSO established and hosted the Gulf Association for Metrology ( GULFMET ) as a Regional 
Metrology Organization (RMO), bringing together National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) of 
GCC countries. The  International Committee of Weights and Measures (CIPM) in BIPM decided to 
grant GULFMET full member ship in  the Joint Committee of the Regional Metrology Organizations and 
the BIPM ( JCRB), with a voice and the r ight to vote in CIPM meeting No. 110 dated on 22-24 June 
2021.  
6  CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT  
6.1.  GSO developed the GCC Conformity Assessment Scheme  in pursuance of reducing the tech nical 
barriers of trade and facilitating the free movement of commodities across borders within the 
GCC member States and the rest of the world. Within the framework of the Gulf System for Safety 
Monitoring of Products in the GCC Common Market, GSO has issued Horizontal Technical 
Regulations, Vertical Technical Regulations, as well as other Technical Guides. Two Technical 
Regulations have been implemented with  the Gulf Conformity M arking , namely, the GSO Technical 
Regulation on Toys and the GSO Technical Regulation on Low Voltage Electrical Equipment and 
Appliances.  
6.2.  GSO has also developed a Gulf Conformity Tracking System (GCTS) which has proven to be a 
great success in the implemen tation of the GSO LV technical regulation , and help s to track both the 
supply chain and technical conformity.  
6.3.  More than 440 ,000 conformity certificates for vehicle, tiers, motorcycle s have been issued 
through the Electronic Conformity Certificate Scheme (ECCS) . GSO is the notifying authority by 
decision of  the Board of Directors, May 2013. GSO approved 79 notified bodies in many countries 
around the world. 35 ,608 pr oducts ha ve receive d the G -Mark through more than 37 ,419 conformity 
certificates issued through the GCC Conformity Tracking System . Additionally, 971 free Proficiency 
Testing Programs (PTs) for 653 GCC laboratories have been organized as one of the main activities G/SPS/GEN/1953  
 
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  of the Gulf Association for Laboratories (GCCLAB) , which is an open network fo r laboratories and 
supporting companies operating in the GCC member States. It was established as an initiative of 
the GSO and the recommendations of the first GCC Conference for Laboratories Proficiency (Dubai, 
13 March 2013).  
7  CAPACITY BUILDING  
7.1.  GSO invest s in strengthening the knowledge, skills, and know-how of specialists in NSBs 
through extensive and blended training and technical assistance programs. GSO established the GCC 
Standardization Training Center  to meet the needs and requirements of the GSO members , and to 
aim at helping members participate effectively in the development of international standards, as 
well as towards increasing their competence in good standardization practices (GSP s). An annual 
training plan is designed based on the needs  of NSBs , and training is  to be delivered through highly 
qualified experts in cooperation with international and regional standardization organizations.  
7.2.  GSO took the ini tiative to provide many awareness courses and seminars on precaution for 
COVID -19, and  these were held  even during the crises. Recently, GSO conducted more than 
34 on-line training courses for its members and stakeholders , which is in addition  to the more than 
500 training courses conducted during the last years. So far, GSO has trained at least 
15,000 participants from GSO members around the word.  
8  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (I T) SOLUTIONS  - INTEGRATION WITH INTERNATIONAL 
AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS  
8.1.  GSO has deve loped many platforms and e -services  and continuously  keeps working on  their 
content  development and improvements to meet the needs of the member States covering all 
standardization activities.  
8.2.  ISO and GSO have organized many bilateral virtual meetings and workshops related to ISO  API 
Gateway and ISO Global Directory, Standardization Identity Federation (SIF), and Standards 
Authoring using XML.  
8.3.  GSO IT Systems are integrated with ISO A PI Gateway. Starting negotiations with "Inera " for 
using their "eXtyles " word add -in to convert GSO Standards from Word to XML. Work is still in 
progress on this initiative.  
8.4.  Within the adoption agreement signed between GSO and IEC  in Shanghai  2019, 
the IEC provides the GSO access to the FTP server of all IEC standards with a generic watermark 
and via the library server. GSO and IEC have started already their discussion about using the IEC  API 
Gateway to access the metadata and unprotected standards on be half of GSO members , for which 
GSO is hosting their National Standards Stores , such as Oman and Kingdom of Bahrain.  
8.5.  Also, GSO signed copyright license agreements with the European Committee for 
Standardization's European Committee for Electrotechnical Stan dardization (CEN-CENELEC ) by 
which both sides have full access to the standards metadata of each other. GSO IT Systems are 
integrated with ASTM Standard Publishing Application (SPA) A PI as well.  Such international and 
regional cooperation enables GSO to de velop a unified platform to search different standard s 
catalogues and facilitate the adoption process for standards at the GCC  level.  
9  INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION  
9.1.  The GSO , with the objective to establish mutually beneficial cooperation with the relevant 
international and regional organizations , continues to promote international standards through 
64 MoUs and Cooperation agreements  with many international and  regional organizations, such as 
ISO, IEC , the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),  WTO (TBT, SPS), the  
Codex  Alimentarius, the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OMIL), CEN -CENELEC, 
Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries (SMIIC), Arabic Industrial Development and 
Mining Organization (AIDMO), Pan American Standards Commission (COPANT), African Organi zation 
for Standardization (ARSO), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the 
International Code Council (ICC); etc.  G/SPS/GEN/1953  
 
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  9.2.  GSO participated in the regular meeting of the SPS Committee, held virtually on 25 -26 March 
2021, as well as at the informal se ssion on 24 March 2021 and the Thematic Session on African  Swine 
Fever on 23 March 2021.  
9.3.  GSO participated in the monthly regional webinar organized by the African Organization for 
Standardization  (ARSO ): "Trading in Agriculture and Food Products – Interfac ing the Technical 
Barriers to Trade (TBT) & Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures for Market Access ", on 19 May 
2021.  
9.4.  GSO participated in many key international and regional meetings, some of which are included 
below, as well as upcoming meetin gs: 
− GSO and ITU -T/TSB Director Meeting - 11 March 2021 ; 
− The ISO monthly virtual meetings of regional and sub -regional standards organizations of 
the Africa Arab States region ; 
− The regular meeting of the SPS Committee, held virtually on 25 -26 March 2021, as wel l as 
at the informal session on 24 March 2021 and the Thematic Session on African Swine Fever 
on 23 March 2021 ; 
− The 55th meeting of the Arab High Committee for Standardization (AIDMO), 25 March 2021 ; 
− SMICC Technical Week 9 from 15 March - 1 April 2021 ; 
− The COPANT Week 2021 – 19-21 April 2021 ; 
− The 26th ARSO General Assembly Virtual meeting on 16 June 2021 ; 
− The 55th CEN and 61st CENELEC General Assemblies, 11th Common Session – 24 June 2021 ; 
− The 12th International Economic Summit "Russia — Islamic world: Kazan Summit 2021 ", 
28-30 July  2021; 
− Codex Colloquium for the Middle East and North Africa Region, Dubai, 12 -14 September 
2021; 
− The 55th DEVCO Meeting, 16 -17 Sep tember  2021; 
− The 43rd ISO Week, 22 -24 September  2021 which was hosted virtually by BSI, London, 
United Kingdom;  and 
− The 85th IEC General Meeting to be held in Dubai, U nited Arab Emirates , 2-7 October 2021.  
 
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