IEC Family
The IEC Family grew to an all-time high of 155 countries – 72 Full and Associate Members and 83 Affiliates. Four countries became members, with one of them, Libya, rising to Associate Member from Affiliate status while seven others joined the Affiliate Country Programme for developing countries. |
Conformity Assessment Systems
IECEE now counts 51 member countries, with Pakistan joining in 2008. The IECEE CB Scheme issued 53 695 CB Test Certificates during the year.
IECEx grew to 32 member countries with Brazil, Croatia, Malaysia, Poland and Turkey joining in 2008.
IECQ now has 16 member countries with Australia, Singapore and Brazil joining in 2008. |
Standards production
Five hundred and fifty-nine publications were produced, of which 483 were International Standards, 32 were Technical Specifications (for which the consensus was insufficient for the status of an International Standard), 23 were Technical Reports (informative documents), 20 were Publicly Available Specifications (industry specifications seeking full consensus) and one was a Guide. Of the total, 73 % were updates or maintenance of existing IEC Standards.
The year’s production brought the total IEC catalogue to 6 027 publications. The average production time for the development of IEC publications was reduced by six months to 30 months with 69 % of all publications produced in less than three years, 26 % in three to five years, and 5 % in more than five years. Japan, China, Germany and the United States of America were the leading countries proposing new work items for standards development.
The average time to prepare Final Draft International Standards (FDISs) for circulation to members for final voting was less than two months, while the publication time from approval of the FDIS to publication was less than one month.
In terms of the number of IEC Standards produced, TC 61: Safety of household and similar electrical appliances, was by far the most prolific, producing 74 Standards. It was followed by TC 48: Electromechanical components and mechanical structures for electronic equipment, with 36; TC 86: Fibre optics, with 32; TC 100: Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment, with 18; and TC 46: Cables, wires, waveguides, R.F. connectors, R.F. and microwave passive components and accessories, with 16.
While by no means the only measure by which the IEC production should be judged, these figures nonetheless give an indication of the technology areas that are most active. |
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