Recommendation to address the social issues
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This report has examined domestic and international processes for developing standards and assessing conformity to them, as well as the relationships between these processes and U.S. export success. It has demonstrated that standards and conformity assessment systems have important influences on international trade. These are manifest in the successes and opportunities for trade expansion, such as strengthened disciplines in the Uruguay Round Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement provisions; various non-tariff trade barriers that must be reduced or eliminated; and underutilized tools for export expansion. The efficient functioning of standards and conformity assessment systems represents a significant future challenge to industrial advance in the United States, as well as an opportunity for leveraging national advantages in global markets.
This chapter summarizes the state of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment systems and outlines recommendations to enhance their operation to promote economic efficiency. The recommendations include suggested changes in public policies to improve the domestic system, as well as to position U.S. trade policy initiatives to support international trade and U.S. economic advance. As noted below, some recommendations call for action by Congress in the form of new legislation, while others can be implemented by executive branch agencies under existing legislative authority.
The state of the U.S. conformity assessment system poses the most immediate and direct challenge to economic success. Recommendations to streamline this system and increase its efficiency are contained in this chapter. The U.S. standards development system, by comparison, functions well and is effective at meeting national interests. There is the need for improvement, however, in