Turkish Standards Institution signs deal with Botswana

KOCAELI, Turkey

The Turkish body which issues the country’s quality and safety certification signed a memorandum of understanding with its counterpart in Botswana on Monday.

The Turkish Standards Institution (TSE) and the Botswana Bureau of Standards agreed to cooperate on testing, metrology, certification services, standardization and expert exchanges.

Sebahittin Korkmaz, TSE president, said at the signing ceremony that “TSE has established direct relations with the African Regional Standards Organization [ARSO] in order to build bilateral relations with African countries as part of TSE’s foreign policy.”

Korkmaz noted that representatives from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Saudi Arabia were present at the signing ceremony.

“We have 22 solution partners in 15 countries. We will share international experience with Botswana and will be pleased to also contribute to economics and trade. We would like to create a team that will go into action immediately after the deal,” he added.

Masego Marobela, director general of the Botswana Bureau of Standards, said: “We hope to learn a lot from TSE.”

“We attach importance to improving ourselves by learning from the mistakes of other organizations. Learning does not end. We hope to advance and learn many things from TSE with the mutual exchange of information,” Marobela said.

Marobela added that Botswana will carry out TSE surveillance operations. "This will play a crucial role to increase trade volume between the two countries," he said.