DOCUMENTS Country Report Expertise Centre COUNTRY REPORT 2006 - 2007

2 Introduction 

2.1    Background

The project “Support to the Quality Infrastructure of Turkey” has run between 2002 and 2006 and has encompassed a total of 5 assessment visits to Turkey and 5 corresponding country reports. This fifth and last report is meant to be a stand-alone report reflecting the developments achieved during the time of the project, the status in November-December 2006 and finally what remains to be done for the future. The reader will find specific chapters devoted to the developments since 2002 on legislation, standardisation, accreditation, conformity assessment and metrology. There are also specific chapters devoted to the results of the seminars arranged during the 2006 visit, the status of the key actors in 2006 and what needs to be done in the future. For the curious reader, a short description of the five visits is also given here in the introduction.

The first visit took place in January 2003, was one week long and concentrated on the central, public institutions, decision makers at the governmental level, the Turkish standards institute TSE, also active in conformity assessment, the Turkish accreditation body TÜRKAK, the national metrology institute UME and major national test-houses, for example those operated by TÜBITAK. These institutions are mainly concentrated around the capital Ankara and the big city Istanbul. This first visit gave the team an insight into the processes of the Turkish administration and the key players of the quality infrastructure. It also showed that there was a confusion of roles, there was need for rigorous implementation of the legislation and still some steps to be taken. The results were summarised and actions proposed. Many of these actions resulted in projects that have been launched and later have resulted in big steps forward.

The second visit took place in January 2004, was two weeks long and concentrated on the Aegean and Marmara region of Turkey and encompassed the provinces of Izmir, Bursa, Istanbul and Kocaeli. Apart from revisiting the key players of the quality infrastructure both in Istanbul and Ankara, it covered a representative sample of first, second and third party conformity assessment bodies within both the private and the public sectors. Altogether some 19 organisations and sites were investigated. This visit drew a map of the implementation of the European legislation and practices on the Turkish market. The three major operators TSE, TÜRKAK and UME were naturally also visited to monitor the development since the first visit.

The third visit took place in November to December 2004, was two weeks long and concentrated, besides the central Turkish administration in Ankara, on the provinces of Gaziantep, Adana and Konya in the southeast and the middle plateau of the Anatolian peninsula. These provinces have a special role in the Turkish industrial profile, with a high concentration of small and medium sized enterprises and have some of the largest organised industrial areas of Turkey. Some 23 organisations and sites were investigated. The focus of that visit was on the two extremes of the market: the top-level decision makers, i.e. the ministries and government authorities, and the end users of the infrastructure, i.e. industries and their subcontractors. This visit drew a map of the knowledge of Turkish industry in the European legislation and its implementation. It also drew a map of how far the top-level administration has come in implementing the tools necessary for establishing and maintaining the European legislation functional and efficient. TSE, TÜRKAK and UME were visited once more for monitoring the development.

The fourth visit took place over a 3-week period in November to December 2005. The visit covered Istanbul and the central Turkish administration in Ankara as well as Trabzon, Ordu and Samsun in the eastern Black Sea provinces. These locations were chosen to include this part of the country in the audited areas and due to their different industrial profile. They have small and medium sized enterprises in food processing as well as in mechanical production. 31 organisations and sites were investigated. A majority of the issues addressed concerned many organisations. Some findings from this visit were a confirmation of earlier observations rather than necessarily new situations. 

The fifth and final visit was specifically different from the previous ones and aimed at summing up the achievements since 2002 and giving focus to what needs to be done in the future. The visit was split into two parts. The first part consisted of visits to the key actors, i.e. DTM, ministries, UME, TSE, TÜRKAK and TÜRKLAB. During this part of the visit the experts gathered information on the status of the system at that point in time and investigated the views of the key actors on the future of the new system. The second part of the visit was concentrated
around a seminar with parallell workshops to which representatives were invited from all organisations visited during the five years.

In total the five audit visits have had a geographical coverage as illustrated in Annex 2.

The organisational coverage was as follows,

•          Central administration
•          Local administrations
•          National metrology institute UME
•          Standards institute TSE
•          Accreditation body TÜRKAK
•          Main industrial branches, for example automotive, machinery, food, environment, etc.
•          Main universities
•          Conformity assessment bodies serving the main industrial branches
•          Consumer organisations, CAB organisations
•          Chambers of commerce and professionals.

The organisations visited during the five years are listed in Annex 3.

 2.2  Method of Work

The method used during the last visit was different from the previous years. 6 days of the total of 10 days of the visit were devoted to the key actors, the implementing authorities and key stakeholder organisations as follows.

-          Undersecretariat for Foreign Trade

-          Ministry of Industry and Trade

-          Ministry of Labour and Social Security

-          Ministry of Health

-          Ministry of Public Works and Settlement

-          The university sector

-          Turkish Association of Chambers

-          TÜBITAK (science foundation)

-          Association for Protection of Consumers

-          TÜRKLAB (Association of laboratories)

-          TÜRKAK (Turkish Accreditation Agency)

-          TSE (Turkish Standards Institute)

-          UME (Ulusal Metroloji Enstitüsü, Turkish National Metrology Institute)

There were no visits made to manufacturers and stakeholders in other parts of the country than Ankara and Istanbul. The purpose of the visits was to investigate the present situation in order to make a comparison with 2002 when the first visit was made.

The last four days of the visit of 2006, were devoted to a seminar. This was started with a common seminar where the experts gave a reflection of the developments since 2002. The participants were then divided into parallell workshops based on different categories of directives and one workshop was focused particularly on consumer protection issues. The aim of the seminars was to investigate the results of the achievements during the project as seen from the point of view of the stakeholders with a focus on the particular subjects of the workshops. Invitation was sent to all organisations visited during the project and also to other stakeholders. Thus, there were representatives from all key actors and all categories of stakeholders during the seminars.

The meticulous reader will find that the work methods and the four earlier reports have not followed the Terms of Reference of the project in an exact manner. In fact based on the situation of the market being investigated, the experts have taken the liberty to discuss with the project board and the representatives of the EEC and CEN, developments both to the work method and to the report. Based on mutually agreed facts, the reports have achieved a format and content which has been very much appreciated both by the representatives of Turkey and the EU commission representatives who receive the report.

This year another step has been taken in the development of the report depending on the factthat the work performed is different as well. Apart from the Executive Summary and the Introduction, the report focuses on

Ø      What has been achieved since 2002

Ø      Results of the seminar held in December 2006

Ø      What remains to achieved after 2006

Ø      Short status on the key actors of the quality infrastructure

Ø      Annexes to fill in supplementary information

Judgements are based on the united expert team and reflect its knowledge of European best practices within each specific field.

 Each report is written in a self-contained way, so that information from previous years is repeated, when it is necessary for the understanding of this year’s report; but every report will also contain information that is not contained in the preceding ones.