20/09/2010
Al-Akhbar Newspaper 2010/SEPTEMBER/20
Al-Akhbar Newspaper 2010/SEPTEMBER/21
The public sector, in the time of socialism, whether industrial or commercial, controlled the production process in Egypt. It ignored all competition – quality mechanisms, therefore the concept of quality was restricted to the preventive quality concept. The producer set the Egyptian standards himself. Recent changes in the Egyptian industrial arena will notice that a considerable number of Egyptian industries are not isolated from international standard systems. If Egypt commits itself to international quality standards the plan to increase Egyptian exports from EGP 92 billion to EGP 200 billion by 2013 can be easily achieved.(Available in Arabic – German in PDF )
In the past the one who sets the Egyptian standards was the producer himself. He tailored these standards to fit his production capabilities. The age of socialism was characterized by temporary support for the Egyptian economy, in the form of local economic monopolizations. This led to the isolation of the Egyptian economy from the international quality standards. In the eras of the late president Sadat and President Mubarak, Egypt adopted an open door policy as a prelude to economic openness and its challenges. This brought forth new terms, such as custom obstacles and non-custom obstacles, of which are the certificates of origin and quality standards. The Egyptian quality system was confined to the quality of the final product, which did not guarantee the quality of the whole process of production. Certain concepts emerged, such as the necessity of carrying out inspections on the production system, industrial inputs and the negative or positive effects on environmental and health systems. The current stage for standards witnessed a great development in their number, as they are now approaching 10,000. The number of obligatory standards has dropped to less than 1,000. Egypt is now open to the world. There are unified standards governing international trade and industry and any violation of these standards will result in complete isolation from world markets, which leads to economic isolation. In the future manufacturers will seek to get local and international certificates that guarantee the quality of their products. Setting general unified standards for similar products and goods, instead of defining standards for every product will happen in the near future.