Saudi Industrial Products Standards and Technical Regulations
The development of standards in Saudi Arabia has been achieved through the national technical committees in different industries such as electrical, mechanical, textiles, chemical, petroleum, metrology, and services. These committees’ representatives are engaging with a wide range of stakeholders. SASO’s engagement strategy in national committees is to have a balance of representatives from the private sector, government sector, and academia. All representatives should have a high level of experience in relation to the committee’s topic and be able to contribute within the team. Also, there are currently thirty-eight national technical committees in SASO; most of them are mirror committees of international organizations such as GSO, IEC, ISO, ASTM and EN. The process of developing standards in Saudi Arabia starts with an investigation to determine if there are any gaps that need regulating in the market. This is done through the cooperation of all the private and government entities in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Vision 2030 and its twelve programs is another driver for determining the priorities. Then the priorities’ options are investigated to select the important list of projects that need standardization. After that, the national committees start the work after all the necessary representatives have been nominated, and the public hearing step is applied after the committee’s standards document has been drafted. The feedback from experts and interested parties in Saudi Arabia is tackled by the national committee. Finally, if there are no critical requirements that need to be studied by the committee, the standards projects move to the approval stage for approval by the SASO board members. The national standards in Saudi Arabia are enforced by technical regulations. SASO has the mandate of issuing the national technical regulations for products and services. These regulations focus on specific areas and define managerial practices and refer to the national standards that must be applied.
Through SASO, Saudi Arabia has 18974 standards in place, of which 1003 are based on GCC standards as set by GSO, and 15936 and international adopted standards, 294 EN standards and 692 are Saudi national standards, 1277 are compulsory standards.
SASO ensures the application of these technical regulations and standards by an electronic system called saber platform products manufactured or exported to Saudi Arabia should be registered on this system and there should be Saudi certificate of conformity issued on it by any of the recognized CB’s by SASO.
The development of standards in Saudi Arabia has been achieved through the national technical committees in various industries such as electrical, mechanical, textile, chemical, petroleum, metrology and services. Representatives of these committees work with a wide range of stakeholders. SASO’s strategy for engagement with national committees is to create a balance between representatives from the private sector, government sector, and academia. All representatives should have a high level of experience related to the committee’s topic and be able to contribute within the team. In addition, there are currently thirty-eight national technical committees in SASO; most of them are mirror committees of international organizations such as GSO, IEC, ISO, ASTM, and EN. The process of developing standards in Saudi Arabia begins with an investigation to determine if there are any gaps that need to be regulated in the market. This is done through the collaboration of all private and government agencies in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Vision 2030 and its twelve programs are another driver for priority setting. Priority options are then studied to select the most important projects that need to be standardized. After that, the national committees start their work after all the necessary representatives are appointed, and the public hearing is held after the committee’s standardization document is prepared. The feedback from experts and interested parties in Saudi Arabia is considered by the national committees. Finally, if there are no critical requirements that need to be investigated by the committee, the standardization projects are approved by the SASO Board. National standards in Saudi Arabia are enforced through technical regulations. SASO is mandated to issue the national technical regulations for products and services. These regulations focus on specific areas and define management practices and reference the national standards that must be applied.
Through SASO, Saudi Arabia has 18974 standards, of which 1003 are based on GCC standards set by GSO and 15936 are international standards, 294 are EN standards and 692 are Saudi national standards, while 1277 are mandatory standards.
SASO ensures the application of these technical regulations and standards through an electronic system called “saber platform”. Products manufactured in or exported to Saudi Arabia should be registered in this system and there should be a Saudi certificate of conformity issued by one of the certification bodies recognized by SASO.