. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/GEN/97 
30 April 2010 
 (10-2335) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:    English 
  
 
UPDATE FROM THE OIML ON RELEVANT ON-GOING WORK  
 
 
 The following information was provided by the OIML
 (International Organization of Legal 
Metrology) at the TBT Committee meeting of 24-25 March 2010. 
 
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The OIML works for international harmonisation in the field of legal metrology.  The 
following recent developments are of interest to the TBT Committee: 
I. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 
1. In 2009, the OIML initiated a new award – the OIML Award for excellent contributions to 
legal metrology in a developing country, to: 
"acknowledge and honour new and outstanding activities achieved by individuals, 
national services or regional legal metrolog y organizations cont ributing significantly 
to legal metrology objectives on national or regional levels." 
2. At the 44th Meeting on the International Committee of Legal Metrology (CIML), this award 
was given to Mr Osama Melhem, Director of the Metrology Department of the Jordanian Institution 
for Standardization and Metrology.   
3. As part of the Award ceremony Eberhard Se iler, OIML Facilitator for Developing Country 
Matters, explained the facts on which this decision was based.  The examples he mentioned clearly 
showed the benefits for consumers and the contributions  to fair trade in Jordan.  Some of the methods 
are most certainly of interest to other legal metr ology services, which could in turn benefit from the 
Jordanian experience. 
4. The Facilitator referred to the April 2009 issue of the OIML Bulletin in which an illustrated 
description was published of the current situation of metrology in Jordan.   
5. An additional project of special interest to Arabic-speaking countries (and indeed regional 
cooperation in general) was his translation of vari ous OIML Publications into Arabic, including the 
International Vocabulary of Legal Metrology and th e brochure on the International System of Units, 
printed by the Jordanian Institutio n.  The BIML has made these translations freely available on its 
Developing Countries web site.   
6. For further information, please contact Ian Dunmill, BIML Assistant Director 
(ian.dunmill@oiml.org ) or Eberhard Seiler, OIML Facilita tor for developing country matters 
(eberhardseiler@msn.com ). G/TBT/GEN/97 
Page 2  
 
  II. OIML MUTUAL ACCEPTANCE ARRANGEMENT (MAA) 
7. The OIML MAA was set up as a service to indus try to provide extra confidence in OIML 
Certificates for measuring instruments.  A separate Declaration of Mutual Confidence is signed for 
each category of measuring instrument to which the MAA is applied, indicating that the signatories 
have confidence in the results of tests conducted by  other participants.  To date, DoMCs have been 
signed for: 
(a) R 76 Non-automatic weighing instruments 
(b) R 60 Load cells 
(c) R 49 Water meters 
8. The BIML is currently working on setting up two more DoMCs: 
(a) R 51 Automatic catchweighers 
(b) R 117 Fuel dispensers 
9. For further information, please contact Régine Gaucher, MAA Project Leader 
(regine.gaucher@oiml.org
). 
III. PREPACKAGED GOODS 
10. The OIML is currently working on the establis hment of an International system for the 
certification of prepackages.  The work is handled by TC 6, held by South Africa.  A meeting of this 
technical committee was held in early March 2010 in Pretoria.  For further information, please contact 
Mr.  Jaco Marneweck, TC 6 secretary ( marnewj@nrcs.org ). 
 
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