As part the New Zealand Government’s negotiation of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with its trading partners, it will commonly negotiate a Government-to-Government Agreement for the Mutual Recognition of Conformity Assessment (G2G MRA). Such agreements (typically specific to industry or trading sectors) allow New Zealand exporters to demonstrate the conformity of their product with the importing economy’s specific requirements by using a New Zealand-based conformity assessment body that has been recognised under the G2G MRA.
Under such MRAs, this recognition process is referred to as ‘Designation’ – the New Zealand Government appoints a Designating Authority (DA), who in turn ‘designates’, through its own processes, Conformity Assessment Bodies (CAB) who have demonstrated the competence to assess conformity of exported products against the importing economy’s requirements. These Designated CABs are ‘notified’ (by the New Zealand Government) to the importing economy’s regulatory authorities, where they are listed as ‘Notified Bodies’ (NB) and their conformity assessment results accepted under the G2G MRA.
The New Zealand Government has appointed IANZ as the Designating Authority under a number of G2G MRAs. In all cases, the mechanism that IANZ uses for Designation is accreditation; the CAB is required to become IANZ accredited against the appropriate testing or inspection accreditation standard (plus any specific IANZ technical criteria) as pre-requisite to Designation. In addition to this accreditation, the CAB will also need to comply with any additional requirements specified in the G2G MRA prior to Designation.
A Fee Schedule can be found under the Forms section on this page.
Scopes of accreditation will be expressed in accordance with the conventions within the appropriate testing laboratory or inspection body programme in which the CAB is accredited, but in all cases will reflect the testing or inspection (and associated methodology) required under the G2G MRA, i.e. the importing economy’s technical standards for the product being tested or inspected.
A separate accreditation will be granted for each Designation under the Designated CAB programme, and will contain only those tests/inspections relevant to that Designation. Other testing/inspection for which accreditation is held will be detailed in the scope of accreditation under the generic testing laboratory/inspection body accreditation programme.
Current G2G MRAs for which IANZ is the Designating Authority include:
* The European Union-NZ MRA for CE Marking in the electrical and electronics sector (i.e. the Low Voltage Directive and the like);
* The China-NZ MRA for China Compulsory Certification (CCC) Marking also in the electrical and electronic sectors;
* The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) MRA for Conformity Assessment of Telecommunications Equipment (APEC TEL MRA) - specifically the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Accreditation of Laboratories for RF Equipment Authorisation, and the Canadian Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada, Spectrum Management and Telecommunications (SMT).
