Raj Nathan Elected to APAC Executive Committee
Raj Nathan, President of the International Accreditation Service (IAS) has been elected to the Executive Committee of the Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC). The Executive Committee functions as a board of directors and is responsible to the General Assembly for the effective pursuit of APAC objectives, and for the oversight of the operations and management of APAC. APAC (https://www.apac-accreditation.org/) is the regional association of accreditation bodies in the Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) was established on January 1, 2019 by the amalgamation of two former regional accreditation cooperations – the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) and the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC).
Raj has been president of IAS since 2018. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, and in other positions, for IAS where he gained over 20 years of progressive technical and management experience in conformity assessment and accreditation area. He led the successful expansion of IAS’ business operations globally. He has served and lead international teams to Japan, India, Singapore, etc. on a variety of global assignments in peer evaluation of the national accreditation systems. Raj holds a Master of Science in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering from University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
APACs’ primary role is to manage and expand a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA) among accreditation bodies in the Asia Pacific region to facilitate trade. The MRA facilitates the acceptance of test reports, inspection reports and management systems across the region and with other regions around the world. The region represents over half of world trade and two-thirds of global human population.
This APAC mutual recognition and acceptance of conformity assessment reduces the need to undertake duplicate testing, inspection or certification, thus saving time and money, increasing economic efficiency and facilitating international trade. APAC has:
47 Full Members across 29 economies that are APAC MRA signatories; 18 Associate Members across 15 economies; and 8 Affiliates across 8 economies.
APAC’s members include accreditation bodies, accreditation focal points and other organizations that have an interest in accredited conformity assessment results.
APAC is recognized by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) as one of four APEC Specialist Regional Bodies (SRBs) that support the work of the APEC Sub-Committee on Standards and Conformance.
