One Size Fits all or Tailor-Made? Building Appropriate Certification
Systems for Geographical Indications in Southeast Asia
international. Voluntary standards in
agro-food products include VietGap
(Vietnam Good Agricultural Practices),
safe vegetables, and organic agriculture.
The BoA’s accreditation programs op-
erate according to international stan-
dards. The Vietnam Certification Ac-
creditation Scheme (VICAS) is one of
these programs. At the time of writing,
certification bodies are only accredited
to certify VIETGAP (not GIs).
maintaining, extending, suspending,
and withdrawing accreditation to lab-
oratories and conformity assessment
bodies, among which are certification
bodies. 23 Once the LNAB is fully oper-
ational, certification bodies will be able
to be accredited locally and will no lon-
ger have to rely on foreign accreditation
services.
1.5 Certification and control
The Cambodian Ministry of In- schemes for Geographical
dustry and Handicraft has set up an Indications
Institute of Standards. A new product
certification scheme conforming to the
requirements of the ISO/IEC Guide 65
is currently being developed. The De-
partment of Accreditation, created in
2016, is the authority responsible for
Accreditation of Conformity Assess-
ment Bodies, but Cambodia does not
yet have an accredited body for GI cer-
tification. 22
The Lao PDR is currently set-
ting up the Lao National Accreditation
Bureau (LNAB) to be hosted by the
Ministry of Science and Technology
(Department of Standardization and
Metrology) with the support of ASE-
AN’s Consultative Committee on Stan-
dards and Quality (ACCSQ), which
organizes training courses to strength-
en accreditation services in Cambodia,
Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam. The
LNAB will be in charge of granting,
22
23
24
25
I
n Thailand, the law does not require
a control mechanism for the use
of the GI, i.e. the use of the name
protec ted as a GI. This is different for
producers/processors willing to use the
Thai national GI logo. The producers/
processors group must file an appli-
cation with the DIP and develop a GI
operating manual and a control plan. 24
In practice, the control plan is generally
prepared with the support of the pub-
lic authorities and is first implemented
by the group of producers/processors
(internal control) followed by exter-
nal control by a Provincial Committee
composed of individuals from the DIP,
the local authorities, and producers/
processors. The external control can be
delegated by the Provincial Committee
to the Province or to another public
agency. 25 If there is no producer/pro-
cessor group, the Provincial Committee
http://www.da-canc.gov.kh/en and http://www.isc.gov.kh/en/.
Decree on the Implementation of the Law on Standardization (June 2012).
ACT 2534 revised by ACT (No.5) BE 2545 (Art.1 point 5.1)
In 2015, 15 GIs used the Thai National GIs Logo; 39 GIs had the GIs Manual; 35 GIs had an Internal
Control Plan; and 27 GIs also had a Committee to coordinate the control activity, take decisions,
and verify the internal control. Of these 27, 19 had a “Provincial Committee”. However, this system
is not recognized internationally.
115