The Institute for Accreditation of the Republic of Macedonia (IARM) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Accreditation Service of the Russian Federation. The memorandum was signed during the eighth session of the Russian-Macedonian Intergovernmental Commission for Trade-Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation, held on September 29 and 30, 2014 in Kaliningrad, Russian Federation. The session was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia and Minister of Finance Mr. Zoran Stavreski and the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation Mr. Maxim Travnikov. The working groups of the high intergovernmental delegations discussed several important topics of common interest, such as: – main directions and perspectives of the development of trade and economic cooperation between the two economies, energy, transport, agriculture and military-technical cooperation. The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the national accreditation bodies of the Republic of Macedonia and the Russian Federation was especially welcomed. The signing of this Memorandum is an expression of the good will of the signatories for establishing informative, analytical and organizational cooperation in the field of accreditation, in accordance with the relevant documents of international and regional accreditation organizations. The main directions of cooperation are exchange of experiences and information related to the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies, exchange of assessors, organization of trainings, workshops, seminars and conferences on issues of common interest, strengthening economic cooperation between the two economies, in particular by eliminating technical barriers to trade through the conformity assessment process. At the same time, with the signing of the Memorandum, the IARM expands bilateral cooperation, which as a goal is contained in the Annual Work Program of the IARM in 2014 and is an integral part of the strategy for effective cooperation with national accreditation bodies worldwide. Also, within the session, a seminar was organized and held on the topic “Harmonization of national accreditation systems of the countries of the Eurasian region”, which was attended by representatives of accreditation bodies from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Armenia. At the seminar, the Director of the IARM, Dr. Trpe Ristoski, had a special presentation at which he presented the national accreditation system in the Republic of Macedonia, during which the promotional video material for the work of the IARM was promoted.
