BY OMER FARUK GUNEL
STAR- Yesterday Antalya began hosting the 49th Congress of the European Organization for Quality, an independent, non-profit group striving for improvement in the sphere of quality management. Approximately 1,000 Turkish and foreign visitors are attending the two-day meeting. Nearly half of the participants came from Iran, the Russian Federation, the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal, mainly from academic circles. The Turkish Standards Institute (TSE) is hosting the gathering. TSE head Kenan Malatyali is very satisfied with the meeting because it’s brought nearly 1,000 visitors to Antalya at the start of the tourist season.
This is the second time that Turkey has hosted the European Quality Congress. ‘Italy was supposed to host the congress, but it changed its mind at the last minute,’ Malatyali said. ‘So Turkey had this great opportunity to promote its tourism sector on its way towards European Union membership.’
The EU has its own standards. Everything from education to health, from the public sector to the media, is subjected to quality standards. Candidate countries are expected to abide by these standards. Turkey has made good progress on this issue. However, Ankara has yet to establish the EU’s political standards. ‘Turkey isn’t so far behind Europe in terms of quality management,’ said European Quality Organization head Wolfgang Kaerkes. According to him, Turkish companies have done their homework well to improve their quality management systems. Some 85-90 percent of large firms have already fulfilled the requirements of European quality standards.
The only problem is with the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have yet to increase their efficiency and quality to the necessary levels. However, the SMEs’ problems might be resolved with EU financial aid and technical assistance.
Many prominent European firms have chosen Turkey for making new investments. Although the EU and Turkey are cooperating in many fields, Brussels has yet to approve Turkey’s diamond-shaped TSE quality symbol. The EU doesn’t yet see the TSE mark an equivalent of its own CE mark, which indicates that a product complies with the EU’s safety, environmental and quality standards. A product must bear this mark, otherwise it can’t be exported to the EU member states. Turkish firms must reach the CE level so that they can do business in the EU.