COLOMBIA: ANDEAN-Mexican delegation visit to the U.S.
On December 4-10, 2016, the Standards Alliance worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) and the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC) to organize a detailed autos delegation visit to Washington, D.C, Detroit, MI, and Corinth, MS.
The 7 visiting officials included representatives of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism (Colombia and Ecuador), national standards body (Ecuador and Mexico), Ministry of Transport (Colombia), and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (Colombia).
The workshop provided an opportunity to discuss how to reduce negative concerns as well as ensure countries are able to meet their legitimate regulatory-and standards-related goals in the least trade restrictive way. The workshop incorporated discussions and visits with experts from across the government, including National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as industry including AAPC members, Toyota, NAVISTAR, Ford, Caterpillar, and Daimler to name a few. The group had an opportunity to visit a Caterpillar Reman facility and learn about
regulatory compliance from the remanufacturing perspective as well as core inspection, advanced additive manufacturing technologies, assembly operations, and testing and verification operations as well as visit an automotive parts manufacturing facility and a remanufacturing facility.
The week long delegation visit was a follow-up to the one-day Automotive Standards and Regulations in the Americas workshop that Standards Alliance, DoC and AAPC conducted in Guayaquil, Ecuador on April 22, 2016 with over 70 participants representing over 20 countries. As a result of the one-day workshop and other bilateral
dialogue Ecuador has agreed to accept the use of the “Blue Ribbon Letter” program to verify Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) certification of compliance for vehicles in Ecuador. This new certification option provides U.S. automakers with means to certify vehicles (safety requirements) to Ecuadorian
authorities without incurring costs not born by products built to competing regulatory certification regimes.
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