 the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards and the Ministry of Commerce, Business Development, Corporate's and Consumer Affairs are pleased to join the members of the International Organization for Standards, the ISO, International Electro-Technical Commission and the International Telecommunication Union in celebrating World Standards Day on 14th of October, 2022. Annually on this day, the world celebrates the unifying construct of standardization, which empowers, augments and impacts our way of life. Standards serve to minimize the contrast between developed and developing countries. Standards are the catalyst which opens up the opportunity for global trade to many of our MSMEs through adoption of good practices. Standards are the enabling measures which will aid St. Lucia in its pursuit towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As a small island developing state, which wants to affirm its presence and participation on the global stage, we must place emphasis on our standards and our national quality infrastructure. The Government of St. Lucia has placed the implementation of a national quality policy as priority on the agenda of its national development strategy. We recognize that while the administrative structure of government can create and implement policy to realize this, our culture must also be reflective of a people who embrace and engender the concept of standards to constantly improve our quality of life. It is with this global understanding that the theme for this year's World Standard Day is, and I quote, a shared vision for a better world, a global call to action, urging all societies and governments to play their part in protecting our beautiful planet and improving the lives and economic prospects of all. A good national quality infrastructure is characterized by the following components, standards, quality promotion, conformity assessments, which includes testing, calibration, certification, and inspection, accreditation, and meteorology. The St. Lucia Bureau of Standards in its mission to contribute to the advancement of the national economy supports sustainable development, promotes health and safety of consumers, protects the environment, and facilitates trade. Accordingly, the Bureau has been tasked with the management of the national quality infrastructure. In order for the quality infrastructure to be fully developed, there must be a close partnership between the public and private sectors. This partnership can only be effective if the national quality infrastructure is developed in a methodical and structured manner. This process involves establishing a national quality policy and constructing a national quality council comprising of key government and private sector stakeholders. As a custodian of St. Lucia's national quality infrastructure, the Bureau has demonstrated its commitment to quality by the continued certification to ISO 9001, the accreditation of our meteorology lab to ISO 17025, a first in the OECS, and the progress towards our accrediting, our conformity assessment process to ISO 17020. With the aid of the Commonwealth Standards Network, we continue our participation in the new phase termed the Standards Partnership, which aims at furthering strengthening trade through standards. In phases one and two of the Commonwealth Standards Network, St. Lucia augmented its standards portfolio by adopting standards linked to SDGs and national priorities. This has strengthened St. Lucia's ability to demonstrate the use of and conformity to international standards, which will significantly improve our suite of demand-driven quality products for export. A critically important aspect of the work at the Bureau involves the implementation of the national quality policy to guide the development of St. Lucia's pathway to economic recovery, as we continue to grapple with external shocks. The policy is designed to address short and long-term needs that will provide the appropriate mechanisms for assisting local entrepreneurs, including MSMEs to access local, regional, and global markets, while also ensuring human, animal, plant health, as well as the safety and protection of the environment. The Bureau has embarked on several joint initiatives with other state entities, such as the Ministry of Commerce, Cannabis Task Force, our Ministry of Agriculture, National Agriculture Diagnostic Facility, the South Wales Community College, Export St. Lucia, Ministry of Tourism, and the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council to name a few. All in an effort to build capacity, increase resilience and create opportunities for our local entrepreneurs to tap and reach international markets that were previously unattainable. By providing standards and standard training, the Bureau aims to strengthen the national quality infrastructure by doing the following, using standards and measurement techniques to create better, safer, and more sustainable products, enhancing consumer protection, reducing technical barriers to trade, reducing the cost of international trade, helping our products and services become internationally competitive. Businesses will profit as standards assisting achieving economic advantages, improving manufacturing processes, saving time and money on research and development, reducing waste in materials and labor, reducing inventory costs, reducing overall costs of design and manufacturing, and improving competitiveness. Our people can be secure in knowing that the products and services we receive are safe and of required quality. Add hair to country regulations, ensure sustainability and protection of the environment. I am certain that with the wide diversity of standards we are developing and adopting, we will see a marked improvement in the quality of life of our people. We now have standards dealing with almost every facet of society, the environment, and the economy. Environmental standards dealing with our climate and sustainable development, such as guidelines for recreational water quality, environmental management systems. We have food safety and agricultural standards to enhance food, such as code of good agricultural practices with a production of fresh produce, code of practice for packaging and transport of fresh fruits and vegetables, code of good agricultural practices for swine, standard for food and beverage preparation services. We have tourism standards to constantly improve our competitiveness, such as specification for tourist accommodation, general requirements and hotel requirements, standard for water-based tourism. As our government seeks to ensure relevant and innovative policies of socioeconomic importance, we will be adopting a variety of cannabis standards from the American Society of Technology and Materials to assist in developing the cannabis industry. Very soon we will have our own switch of national cannabis standards. I call on all citizens, we are all stakeholders in the economy, society and environment of St. Lucia. We should all participate through the public comment stage of the standardization process in an effort to create and maintain greater quality outcomes for all. I wish to extend sincere thanks to the people of St. Lucia and the volunteers on the technical committees who have helped develop and shape national standards. Let me therefore wish you a happy World Standard Day 2022. I thank you.