Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) - Brazil

Project description

Title: Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) - Brazil
Commissioned by: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK)
Country: Brazil
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC)
Overall term: 2017 to 2023

Context

Some of the most crucial quality expectations consumers and companies have, are safety, reliability, and compatibility of products and services. Quality Infrastructure describes the system, which ensures that users’ quality expectations and regulatory requirements are met. It comprises the totality of public and private institutions required to establish and implement voluntary standards and technical regulations, conformity assessment and accreditation, as well as market surveillance and legal metrology.

In a world of global value chains, it is important that countries’ national quality infrastructures are well functioning and internationally coherent. This reduces time, costs and business uncertainty of firms participating in global markets and ensures sustainable economic trade and development. Diverging standards as well as multiple testing and certification requirements often do little to improve the quality of products but impose costs on companies and consumers. While tariff levels have been reduced globally over the past decades, rising technical and regulatory barriers to trade require increased international cooperation.

With bilateral trade approaching 14 billion dollars annually (2016), Germany and Brazil have a strong interest in enhancing the quality of traded goods and services. Both countries agree that the full economic potential of cooperation is yet to be achieved, especially in areas such as manufacturing and digital technologies. The closer the economic partnership between Brazil and Germany becomes, the more relevant it is to discuss the technical modalities of the economic exchange. The need for cooperation on quality infrastructure is therefore a sign of the two countries’ strong relations.

Objective

The Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) advises and supports the political and technical dialogue between the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), and partner ministries in emerging economies like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico to reduce technical barriers to trade, enhance product safety, promote innovation and strengthen consumer protection.

Approach

The political and technical dialogues between Germany and its partner countries involve key stakeholders on both sides: ministries, subordinate government institutions, industry associations and companies as well as technical and scientific institutions. 
In Brazil, a Brazilian-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure between the (former) German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the (former) Brazilian Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services (MDIC) was established on November 13th 2017 in Porto Alegre. The topics of the Working Group are revised annually, and reflect key areas of both countries’ economic relations. They range from automotive, machine safety, smart manufacturing, medical devices, to information technology (IT) and data protection.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action of Germany (BMWK) has commissioned GIZ to support the implementation of the jointly agreed activities. GIZ supports the development of feasible solutions with the responsible regulators, leading to reductions of time and effort for the industry. It:

  • facilitates the involvement of relevant stakeholders to identify common regulatory and technical issues in market access faced by the private sector
  • ensures that challenges are addressed at the political level
  • implements expert workshops and conferences
  • conducts and publishes reports
  • organises study visits to strengthen knowledge exchange and familiarise participants with new regulations and technical guidelines

The Brazilian-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure focuses on three areas: standardisation, conformity assessment and accreditation, and product safety and market surveillance.

Results

The project in Brazil is expected to achieve the following results: 

  • Issues related to conformity assessment procedures faced by the industry are identified and sought to be resolved, leading to improved business conditions.
  • Accreditation bodies of both countries cooperate to improve the conformity assessment eco system and facilitate bilateral trade.
  • Product safety and market surveillance systems are promoted through policy input and product specific inputs for machinery safety and pressurised equipment.
  • Standards are developed jointly between the Brazilian and German sides in emerging areas such as digital technologies.

Last update: September 2023

Additional information