SRI LANKA: DRAFT STANDARD SPECIFICATION FOR IDENTIFICATION, GRADING AND MARKING OF IMPORTED CONSTRUCTION TIMBER The following notification is being circulated in accordance with Article 10.6. G/TBT/Notif.97.114. 1. Member to Agreement notifying: SRI LANKA. If applicable, name of local government involved (Articles 3.2 and 7.2). 2. Agency responsible: Sri Lanka Standards Institution which functions under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Human Resources Development. Agency or authority designated to handle comments regarding the notification can be indicated if different from above. 3. Notified under Article 2.9.2. 4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading. ICS numbers may be provided in addition, where applicable): Timber. 5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document: Draft Standard Specification for Identification, Grading and Marking of Imported Construction Timber (81 pages, in English). 6. Description of content: This Sri Lanka Standard specifies nomenclature, identification, durability, treatability, grades, grade stresses, marking and requirements for visual stress grading of timber for structural use. Machine stress grading is not included in this Standard. 7. Objective and rationale: Timber is a perishable material which needs great care in specification, selection and handling of bulk imports. Dealers and users also need to be educated to help them sell/select their requirements. Import inspections should be comprehensive and streamlined. Past experience on import of timber to Sri Lanka, which sometimes discouraged the prospective users, has further underlined the need for establishing some guidelines to help the importers, timber merchants and the users. For most effective use of construction timber, it must be structurally designed to suit the specific application. To accomplish this goal, timber over the years, was evolved as an engineering material in spite of its high variability and inherent strength reducing defects by the development of stress-graded timber. As most timber exporters provide stress-graded timber, the required design information as well as the stress-graded timber can be made available to the structural engineers who can pass on the benefits of economy and performance to the user. Availability of stress-graded imported timber will also encourage the stress-grading of local timber in the near future. Hence a need exists for a Sri Lanka Standard on imported construction timber which provides information on selection of species, durability, treatability, timber grades, design stresses as well as guidelines on implementing and checking the grading processes. 8. Relevant documents: After finalization there is a request to make this Standard mandatory, specially for the imports of timber. This will be published in the Sir Lanka Gazette. 9. Proposed date of adoption: After finalization. 10. Final date for comments: 14 May 1997. 11. Texts available from: National enquiry point or Sri Lanka Standards Institution, Documentation & Information Division, 76 Duminda Building, Galle Road, Colombo 04, Sri Lanka, Tel.: +94 1 50 14 46, FAX: +94 1 59 35 86, E-mail: ddi@slsi.ac.lk. (0112)

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