On April 11, 2025, meetings was held virtually with leaders and delegations from the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), State Administration for Market Regulation / Standardization Administration of China (SAMR/SAC), Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates (MoIAT), Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran (INSO), and the Ethiopian Standards Agency (ESA) participated in the first 2025 meeting of BRICS standardization bodies. Representatives from the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia (BSN) attended the meeting for the first time as observers. The Russian delegation was led by Anton Shalaev, Head of the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology (ROSSTANDART).

The meeting was chaired by ABNT, which assumed the 2025 BRICS rotating presidency from ROSSTANDART. Notably, during Russia’s presidency in the previous year, significant progress was made in the fields of standardization and metrology. According to ROSSTANDART’s 2024 Action Plan adopted at the beginning of the year, nearly ten international events were organized, including the landmark first-ever meeting of the heads of BRICS standardization bodies. That historic meeting focused on exploring areas of cooperation and discussing prospects for collaboration among standardization agencies against the backdrop of deepening technical, industrial, and economic cooperation among member states—laying the groundwork for a collaborative framework in standardization.

At this first meeting in 2025, participants reviewed the draft Memorandum of Understanding on Standardization Cooperation. The draft focuses on promoting the exchange of best practices in standardization among BRICS members, enhancing coordination within international standardization organizations, and supporting joint international standard development initiatives. Furthermore, the MoU aims to create more opportunities for BRICS countries to expand cooperation in standardization by facilitating shared proposals and initiatives for joint projects in priority areas—such as conferences, workshops, and collaborative research.

Link to the original article in Chinese:

https://www.cnis.ac.cn/gjbzh/gjdt/202504/t20250416_59832.html