I am confident that each and every one of us, at some point or other, has expressed to himself or herself, the desire that our nation’s overall performance, is enhanced to the extent that the delivery of every sector of the economy reaches optimal conditions.

This, in some way or other, I believe, reflects the common belief that we share. It is of a mutual understanding that providers of goods and services should deliver a highly satisfactory service to their customers and at the end line, that the customer receives value for money from his provider.

This is what standards are all about. In our daily life we seek to ensure that what we, as citizens, consume products or make use of services that carry the highest attainable standards. Gradually we have become more aware that as consumers, we have fundamental rights which have to be observed.

As a consequence, nowadays all public and private institutions that offer goods or services, house within their structure, customer care centres, which have achieved performance certification in the areas of their individual competence, or restructured their operations to make sure they meet today’s required standards.

Within an ever-changing world, these elements are vital to their overall performance and their customers’ satisfaction. If we are aiming at enhancing our nation’s overall delivery, standards are one of the main pillars upon which one has to base his relevant operations.

The Construction Products Directive (CPD) is part of the overall body of EU legislation that the new member states have implemented by the date of accession. In Malta, this directive was transposed by the Consumer and Industrial Goods Directorate of the Malta Standards Authority.

Rather than transposing the legislation with immediate effect, over the past four years Malta has been gradually aligning its regulatory environment for Construction Products. This term (Construction Products) encompasses within it any product which is produced for incorporation in a permanent manner in construction works, including both buildings and civil engineering works, with that established within the European Economic Area (EEA).

Such items already cover a wide spectrum of construction products ranging from cement to geotextiles, precast concrete to thermal insulation products, fixed fire fighting systems to internal partition kits: the list is endless but definitely not exhaustive as new developments are always in the pipeline.

The Malta Standards Authority has ensured that our legislation covered the activities of many different groups: manufacturers, certification bodies, test houses, dealers, design engineers, architects, contractors, regulators and market surveillance authorities.

Although I must point out that Malta did not have to pass through the difficult changeover from mandatory descriptive product standards and national approval systems to European harmonised technical specifications, standards and approvals, as other new member states did, the implementation of this “New Approach” Directive has been phased-in and on several occasions, seminars and workshops have been organised on the subject.

This proved to be the right approach as it really involved a continuous learning process for the authority and the entire construction sector in Malta. This experience further showed that what looked like general and industry-wide elements, for instance, in fact called for special treatment.

For this reason, a year ago, the Authority brought over an eminent expert in concrete products who toured several construction and production sites, addressed a public workshop and gave one-to-one advice on specific queries raised by interested Maltese economic operators.

This time, through the participation in the Standing Committee on Construction Products convened by the European Commission, contacts have been established which made it possible for the Consumer and Industrial Goods Directorate of the MSA to organise this Conference, with the support of the European Commission, TAIEX and COBATY, which is the International Construction Federation.

As Minister for Competitiveness I am particularly interested in gauging the potential benefits of the full implementation of the Construction Products Directive in Malta. I am expecting it to be beneficial on two counts: firstly, it will result in a direct reduction in testing and other costs and secondly, because it will be followed by the positive effects of increased trade, competition and restructuring.

I believe that through this directive there will be a direct reduction in the trading costs for producers. This is principally a result of:

• Reduction in the costs of multiple testing and certification and

• Reduction in the cost of quality management, overheads, packaging and other trade related costs.

However, one can also argue that these savings will be offset by some other costs such as:

• Initial one-off costs for CE-marking of existing products;

• New costs for new CE-marking for small firms, particularly special purpose product manufacturers.

Nevertheless, I believe that the effort and costs required to introduce standardisation should not be regarded as an expense but as an investment which will serve as a guarantee to customers of the quality of our products.

One also has to look at the trade and competition effects of the introduction of such standards. These include:

• Increased trade and competition which encourages companies to reduce prices and increase efficiency;

• Trade effects, as customers are able to select from the most economical source, probably leading to a shift in production towards low cost or high productivity areas;

• Restructuring, rationalisation and economies of scale: where there are many small local firms or where there are national firms which have been impeded from achieving economies of scale by trade barriers, opening the market normally leads to restructuring, as has been happening in various other sectors of our economy;

• Dynamic long term effects due to increased innovation, research and development, resulting from increased competition and rationalised testing procedures.

The Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications through the Malta Standards Authority is currently engaged in dialogue with interested parties to hear their views on the way the implementation of the Construction Products Directive is effecting this important sector in Malta and whether our expectations are being met.

The Malta Standards Authority recently brought over to Malta a very experienced team of European experts in this field who shared their experiences and answered questions from those involved in local construction products.

All those involved in the local construction industry can rest assured that the technical staff of the Consumer and Industrial Goods Directorate of the MSA, being the technical advisory arm of the Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications, can assist them to coordinate the full implementation of the Construction Products Directive.

Censu Galea is Minister for Competitiveness and Communications