SECONDED EUROPEAN

STANDARDISATION EXPERT in CHINA

Brussels, BE - Sophia Antipolis, FR (17 May 2006)

The three European Standardisation Organisations - CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, the European Commission and EFTA have announced the appointment of Mr Klaus ZIEGLER as Seconded European Expert in China, to be based in Beijing starting 1 July 2006 for a three year period.

Recent growth of the Chinese import and export markets has made relations with China a major priority for European businesses. Mr Ziegler will be responsible for increasing cooperation between China and Europe in the fields of standardisation and conformity assessment. His mission will be to explore the standardisation landscape in China in order to identify new standardisation needs and to foster cooperation between Chinese industry and its European counterparts.

European Standardisation has proven to be a successful and essential tool for the completion of the European Single Market.

This is the first time that the European Standards Organisations have coordinated to appoint an expert in a particular country. CEN, CENELEC and ETSI have expressed the collective hope that this new initiative will be a fruitful cooperation with regard to external visibility, and one that may be extended to other regions in the future.

About CEN, CENELEC and ETSI

The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) are the three officially responsible European standardisation bodies that helped to shape the European Internal Market. 

CEN and CENELEC are based in Brussels (Belgium) and ETSI is located in Sophia Antipolis (France). CENELEC deals with electrotechnical standardisation, ETSI with electronic communications, broadcasting and related aspects of information technology and CEN covers all the remaining industry and service sectors.

CEN, CENELEC unite the National Standards Bodies of 29 countries and ETSI's membership comprises almost 700 members from 56 countries inside and outside Europe, including manufacturers, network operators, administration, service providers, research bodies and users.

Between them, the three organisations work with over 70,000 experts from industry and societal and environmental interest groups who develop European Standards (EN) and other specification for more than 480 million people.

Their work directly increases market potential, encourages technological development and guarantees the safety and health of consumers, as well as the environmental protection.

Detailed information available at www.cenorm.be, www.cenelec.org, www.etsi.org.

For further information about this news, please contact:

Geneviève Feyt CENELEC Public Relations & Communications Manager Tel: +32 2 519 68 67 Fax : +32 2 519 6919 Email: info@cenelec.org

Ruth Seibicke CEN Public Relations Manager Tel: +32 2 550 08 33 Fax: +32 2 500 09 16 E-mail: ruth.seibicke@cenorm.be

Kevin Flynn ETSI Press Officer Tel: +33 (0)4 9294 4258 E-mail: press@etsi.org