STANDARDS TRAINING ANNOUNCED FOR RUSSIA AND NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES The U.S. Department of Commerce announced a new initiative desgined to improve product standards and quality control in the Newly Independent States (NIS) while at the same time boosting U.S. trade with the region. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), assisted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is cooperating with the International Trade Administration's Special American Business Internship Training Program (SABIT) to develop and implement a $1.3 million comprehensive standards training program for qualified engineers, administrators, and technical and regulatory experts from the NIS. The training program will familiarize these experts with U.S. government and private-sector processes and procedures for standards development, conformity assessment and quality management, thereby helping their countries to produce high-quality goods. ``The aim of the program is to provide technical training and contacts in support of commercial and technical cooperation between the United States and the NIS, expanding international trade and increasing U.S. exports to the region,'' Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown said. The training will assist NIS experts in utilizing internatioal standards and conformity assessment processes, which will enable them to improve the standards process and quality control in their respective nations. These improvements will lead to the NIS countries' ability to develop high-quality goods for both domestic and worldwide sale. Moreover, the understanding and cooperation developed through this program will facilitate the development and use of harmonized international standards, which also will enhance the competitiveness of U.S. products in the NIS. Through this initiative, 100 NIS standards experts will receive two months of hands-on work with U.S. methods of standardization. The training will be provided consecutively to groups of approximately 20 NIS experts from several key industrial sectors, including automotive, medical equipment, telecommunications and aerospace. NIST will host a two-week orientation to provide an overview of the U.S. standards process and the roles of the federal agencies and private-sector groups. The orientation will be followed by six weeks of intensive training with various U.S. companies, private-sector standards developers, testing laboratories, product certifiers and quality system registrars. ANSI will be responsible for sector-specific program development for each of the groups, as well as for arranging, coordinating and overseeing the training conducted by the private sector. SABIT, which has already successfully trained over 350 executives and scientists from the NIS, will provide the funding to cover the cost of all trainee airfare, per diem, housing, medical insurance and interpreters. SABIT also will assist with trainee visa procurement, travel arrangements and overall program management, and will coordinate post-trainig follow-up with the interns in cooperation with NIST, which will conduct wrap-up sessions with the interns at the conclusion of their training. SABIT already has distributed applications to potential NIS trainees through the central standards organizations in the NIS and will be responsible for final candidate selections, in conjunction with NIST. The first training session, scheduled to begin February 1995, will focus on the automotive sector. For information on SABIT, contact Liesel C. Duhon, Acting Director, SABIT, HCHB 3319, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20230, (202) 482-0073, fax: (202) 482-2443. For information on the NIST role in the standards training program, contact Mary Saunders, Office of Standards Services, Rm 106 TB417, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001, (301) 975-2396, fax: (301) 963-2871. Contact Jane W. Schweiker, director, Government and Organization Relations, ANSI, 655 15th Street, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005, (202) 636-4090, for information on the sector-specific training.

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