G/SPS/GEN/2094  
 
21 February 2023 
(23-1233) 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 17 February  2023, 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 became operational  in May 2004 , whose membership consisted 
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 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 standardization activities and following up on implementation and compliance 
matters  in cooperation and coord ination with the standardization bodies in the member States to 
develop the production and service sectors, foster intra -GCC trade, protect consumer s, 
the environment and public health, enhance the GCC economy and its competitiveness and meet 
the requireme nts 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 Director s of the National 
Standards Bodies (NSBs) of GSO member States.  
3.3.  The Presidency : is headed by the President and consists of GSO Professional Staff to facilitate 
the activities of GSO.  
3.4.  The GSO Steering and Technical Committees (STCs) : consist of technical ex perts 
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, metrolo gy, 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, a nd the first enabler for the Gulf Common Market. To achieve its vision, G/SPS/GEN/2094  
 
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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 operation s 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 ac tivities 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 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 produc ts, 
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 63% are adopted from the International Organizat ion 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, about 8% prepared by GSO, 
and the remaining stand ards 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 development pr ocess. 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. Remarkable cooperation is taking place between GSO TC07 and 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 , 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), bringing toge ther 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 Metr ology 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 System for Safe ty 
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 Tracking 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 480,000 conformity certificates for vehicle, tiers, motorcycle s have been is sued 
through the Electronic Conformity Certificate Scheme (ECCS) . GSO is the notifying authority by 
decision of  the Board of Directors, May 2013. GSO approved 85 notified bodies in many countries 
around the world. More than 48 ,460 products ha ve receive d the G -Mark through more than 
58,629 conformity certificates issued through the GCC Conformity Tracking System . Additionally, G/SPS/GEN/2094  
 
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  1,001 free Proficiency Testing Programs (PTs) for 6 72 GCC laboratories have been organized as one 
of the main activities 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 an initiative of the GSO and the recom mendations 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 assis tance programs. GSO established the GCC 
Standardization Training Center  to meet the needs and requirements of GSO members , and to help 
them participate effectively in t he 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.  
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 an d 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 API Gateway. Starti ng 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 already started 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 Oman and Kingdom of Bahrain.  
8.5.  Also, GSO signed copyright license agreements with the European Committee for 
Standardization  and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CEN-CENELEC ), 
by which both sides have full access to each other's standards metadata , and integrated with  the 
(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 different standard s catalogues and facilitate the adoption process for 
standards at the GCC  level.  
9  INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION  
9.1.  The G SO, with the objective to establish mutually beneficial cooperation with the relevant 
international and regional organizations, continues to promote international standards through 
70 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 and SPS committees , 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 (AR SO), the Southern African Development 
Community (SADC), the International Code Council (ICC); etc.  
9.2.  GSO participated in many key international and regional meetings in the framework of the 
MoUs signed with its partners . G/SPS/GEN/2094  
 
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  9.3.  GSO participated in the regular meeti ng of the SPS Committee, held virtually on 
23-25 March  2022, as well as at the informal session on 23 March 2022 and the Thematic Session 
on trade facilitative approaches to pesticide MRLs, including substances not approved for use in an 
import market on 22 March 2022.  
9.4.  GSO participated in many SPS online meetings with other related organizations during the 
period (March -May 2022).  
9.5.  GSO submitted joint  notification s of some SPS draft standards on behalf of its m ember States.  
9.6.  GSO updated the technical regulation (GSO 1016) related to microbiological standards 
(NOT Published Standard) which were approved by the relevant Technical Committee during the 
Gulf Food Week (28 March 2022) and were preceded by a workshop for the committee devoted to 
discussing the project in its final form (2 March 2022).  
9.7.  GSO organized "The 6th GCC Laboratory Proficiency Conference " under the patronage of 
H.E. The Minister of Commerce, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , in cooperation with Saudi Standards, 
Metrology and Quality Or ganization (SASO), that took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 
18-19 October 2022, under the theme "Laboratory Proficiency for Food Security and Sustainability ". 
The two -day Laboratory Proficiency Conference targeted 300 officials and specialists of labo ratories 
in public and private sectors and was honored by ISO SG, IAF Chair, ILAC Vice Chair, (IAAC) Chair, 
SMIIC SG, ARSO SG, GAC DG, and high -level experts from ISO, GSO, GOIC, ASTM, SFDA, Siemens 
(Middle East), SAC, and GSO member States.  
9.8.  GSO issued 166  standards and technical regulations in the food sector during 2022:  
− 85 Gulf Standards;  
− 38 Gulf technical regulations;  
− 23 translations of standards and technical regulations;  
− 19 technical amendments and typographical corrections.  
9.9.  Many other proposed projec ts, have been submitted for approval, such as:  
− Formation of the Codex Alimentarius Working Group (TC05 -WG1)) affiliated to the Gulf Technical 
Committee for Food and Agricultural Standards (TC05);  
− Formation of a Gulf technical sub -committee for nutrition an d foods with special nutritional uses;  
− Prepar ation of  a project for a unified Gulf Halal system.  
9.10.  Some posts and activities attended in 2022:  
− 22-25 March 2022 WTO SPS Committee meetings and accompanying events (virtually);  
− Several workshops with Codex and t he Regional Near East Committee of the Codex Alimentarius 
Commission, CCNE – Codex;  
− Several workshops for Arab countries in the field of encouraging participation in Codex activities 
throughout the year;  
− Special Halal Conference of the Organization of Isla mic Cooperation (OIC) (online) 
14 February  2022;  
− Organizing the Gulf Food Week and the meetings of the Food and Halal Standards Committees 
(Riyadh, March + November 2022);  
− Nutrition And Food Safety Summit - Nutrition Days (Dubai, 23 -26 May 2022), organized  by the 
European Union;  
− Annual meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC 45) Rome - November 2022, and 
the meeting s of some technical committees of the Codex Alimentarius Commission;  
− Meetings of the Arab initiative for points of contact with the Codex Alimentarius Commission 
(several meetings);  
− Training program me on the activities of participation in Codex work (Tunisia, September 2022 ; 
Jordan, October 2022).  
9.11.  For more information on GSO Outreach Review 2022, please click here. 
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