G/SPS/GEN/1999  
 
4 March 2022 
(22-2015) 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 3 March  2022, 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,  the United Arab Emirates , and Yemen which joined GSO in January  2010. 
2  GSO M ISSION  
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 Agree ment by 
unifying the various standardization 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 Directors 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 Commi ttees (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 excell ence in 
standardization activities, and the first enabler for the Gulf Common Market. To achieve its vision, G/SPS/GEN/1999  
 
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  GSO relies on the successful implementation of three main strategic themes, the first of which is 
organizational excellence - "Accurate implementat ion 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 t hird theme is 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 remaining 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 GS O technical committees follow 
international practices in  the standards development 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 commit tees translated more than 750 ISO standards in different 
categories. Remarkable cooperation is taking place between GSO TC07 & ISO TC 67 (Materials, 
equipment and offshore structures for petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries) which 
resulted i n issuing ISO 16961:2015 and ISO 18797:2016 which are based on GSO 2057/2010 and 
GSO 2273/2012.  
5.3.  GSO established and hosted the Gulf Association for Metrology ( GULFMET ) as a Regional 
Metrology Organization (RMO), bri nging 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 right 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 technical 
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 Sy stem 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 Marking , 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 Trac king System (GCTS) which has proven to be a 
great success in the implementation 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 products ha ve receive d the G -Mark through more than 37 ,419 conformity 
certificates issued through the GC C 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/1999  
 
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  of the Gulf Association for Laboratories (GCCLAB) , which is an open network for laboratories and 
supporting companies operating in the GCC member States. It was established as a n 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 invests 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 initiative 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 developed 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 r elated 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 API 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 waterma rk 
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 behalf of GSO members , for which 
GSO is hosting their National Standards Stores , such as Om an and Kingdom of Bahrain.  
8.5.  Also, GSO signed copyright license agreements with the European Committee for 
Standardization's European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CEN-CENELEC ) by 
which both sides have full access to the standards metadata of each other , and integrated with 
(CEN-CENELEC) API Gateway . GSO IT Systems are integrated with ASTM Standard Publishing 
Application (SPA) A PI as well.  Such international and regional cooperation enables GSO to develop 
a unified platform to search differe nt 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 
65 MoUs  and Cooperation agreements  with many international and regional organizations, such as 
ISO, IEC, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Trade Organization (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 Organization for Standardization (ARSO), the Southern African Development Community 
(SADC), The International Code Council (ICC); etc.  G/SPS/GEN/1999  
 
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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 session on 24 March 2021 and the Themati c Session 
on African Swine Fever on 23 March 2021.  
9.3.  GSO participated in many key international and regional meetings during the term (September 
2021 to March 2022) in the framework of the MoUs signed with its partners:  
− The 43rd meeting of the ISO General Assembly) (ISO WEEK 2021), held virtually on 
(23-24 September 2021;  
− The 55th meeting of the ISO Committee for Developing Countries "DEVCO" 
(16-17 September 2021);  
− The 85th meeting of (IEC) hosted by the United Arab Emirates (3 -7 October 2021);  
− The 44th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (9 -18 November 2021);  
− AIDSMO 56th meeting (29 -30 September 2021);  
− ITU World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly #WTSA20, to enable Digital 
Transformation and Achieving Sustainable  Development Goals #ITUGSS -20 Within the 
framework of the cooperation agreement and the membership of the body in the 
International Telecommunication Union - Standardization Sector at ITU (Geneva, 
28 February to 4 March 2022).  
9.4.  GSO held many bilateral meeti ngs (September 2021 to March 2022), such as:  
− GSO and KAZSTANDARD bilateral meeting (4  October 2021) ; 
− GSO and KATS bilateral meeting (27 -28 October 2021) to introduce the system of Gulf 
technical legislation, the accepted bodies, and the guide for the part icipation of related 
parties with the participation of representatives of the industrial, commercial and 
governmental sector in Korea and the specialists in the Korean Agency ; 
− Virtual meeting with GOIC ( 21 December 2021) to discuss the unified strategy for  Gulf 
industrial development and the visions and strategic directions it contained to enhance joint 
Gulf action ; 
− GSO receives His Excellency the Secretary -General of SMIIC , Mr. Ihsan Ovut , to enhance 
areas of cooperation and the technical work program for 2022 in light of the MoU signed 
between the two sides ( 9 January 2022) ; 
− The 4th GCC-EU Trade and Investment Dialogue (20 January 2022 ); 
− The ICC virtual meeting ( 1 February 2021) ; 
− GSO and IEC SG hold a bilateral meeting at IEC headquarters in Geneva to disc uss 
strengthening cooperation and supporting regional and international standardization, within 
the GSO strategic vision 2025, within the framework of the cooperation agreement between 
the two organizations (Geneva, Switzerland , 28 February 2022) ; 
− GSO and ISO SG hold a bilateral meeting at ISO headquarters in Geneva, GSO reviewed the 
tasks and achievements of the Gulf standardization journey during the 18 years, and 
GSO strategic vision 2025 ( 2 March 2022) ; 
− GSO hold three bilateral meetings with ITU SG, ITU-Standardization Director, ITU Regional 
Director Office, to enhance GSO -ITU cooperation (Geneva, Switzerland, 1 -4 March 2022).  
 
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