The Malta Standards Authority's certification services have been accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Services and the National Accreditation Board - Malta (NAB Malta) has been recognised by the EU.
These developments mean that certification by the MSA is now also recognised by the EU.
In fact, big interest in the MSA's technical service was expressed during a motor show in Bologna and requests for European Type Approvals by Opel and Chevrolet have been received and acknowledged and the first Maltese certificates are expected to be issued in January.
MSA chairman Francis E. Farrugia told a news conference yesterday this and more was done under the 2004 Transition Facility EU-funded project through which the British Standards Institute trained MSA staff.
The project also included the peer evaluation of NAB Malta, leading to the signing of the European Accreditation Multilateral Agreements and the development of a model for the accreditation of certificate service providers offering electronic signatures.
Mr Farrugia said three years ago the MSA started providing certification services as part of its support to Maltese industry. It had always aimed to give a high-quality service that would be internationally recognised.
So UKAS - the largest accreditation body in the world - was called in to audit MSA's certification system according to the new standard ISO17021. Following MSA's considerable effort to abide by the recommendations of UKAS, the latter gave a positive recommendation to award accreditation to ISO17021 to MSA certification.
Competitiveness Minister Censu Galea said that, over the past months, the MSA had its first Maltese technical service designation accepted by the European Commission. Vehicle Technical Service (VTS) is a Maltese-registered company, with its administrative offices in Valletta. It utilises the services of its accredited testing laboratories in Rome and those accredited by the Italian Ministry for Infrastructure throughout the Italian peninsula.
Manufacturers of vehicles and their components must submit an application with any type approval authority, such as the MSA, within EU member states in order to obtain approval and start manufacturing the vehicles and components. Compliance tests have to be performed by authorised laboratories such as the VTS.
The MSA yesterday also published its code of behaviour.
Mr Galea said the authority was doing a lot of silent work with industry and Malta was benefitting from the actions the authority was taking. Its certifications indicated a high quality standard.