Mr Putin and Mr Elkin discussed the agency's operations, in particular concerning petrol. Grigory Elkin said that new standards in that sphere corresponded to international requirements, which is a "positive trend" for both companies and consumers. He said one of the problems with standardisation was the government's excessive (90%) financial contribution to the development of standards.
"This contradicts the global trend," when private business takes an active part in the process, the agency's head said, adding that a positive example was the contribution of researchers from the Bauman Technical University to the development of international biometric identification standards, in particular biometric passports.
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Russia is third in the world in terms of measurement capability. What does this mean in practical terms? I'd also like you to talk about standardisation problems, the energy efficiency of equipment, medical technology, and the like. I know that you have a programme for petrol, in particular diesel fuel.
Grigory Elkin: We have almost completed developing petrol standards to bring them in line with international requirements. These standards will form the basis of technical petrol regulations. I hope that this will help to gradually improve the situation on the market.
Vladimir Putin: How will it improve? Can these improvements possibly lead to changes damaging to consumers?
Grigory Elkin: I think it will be positive for consumers. According to our technical regulations, we are gradually introducing increasingly strict requirements, from Euro 1 to Euro 2 and Euro 3 emission standards.
Vladimir Putin: Why is this good for consumers?
Grigory Elkin: Because engines are becoming better and better and also more demanding, and many car owners are dissatisfied that our filling stations sometimes sell low-quality petrol.
Vladimir Putin: In other words, the producers of petrochemicals, in particular petrol, will have to improve the quality of their products.
Grigory Elkin: Exactly. After we approved new emission regulations, car owners had to adjust their cars to them... We have introduced the Euro 2 standard and now we are introducing Euro 3, which requires the use of engines that run on high-quality petrol. This is why we needed new legislation.
Vladimir Putin: What about diesel fuel?
Grigory Elkin: The same goes for diesel fuel. In fact, we developed the first standard for diesel fuel. We worked jointly with LUKoil to do it, to adjust it to European requirements.
Vladimir Putin: What are you doing in terms of medical equipment?
Grigory Elkin: We have enough metrological standards for medical equipment, which is why we have a system for verifying equipment. The law on the standardisation of measurement entails the inspection of important measurement equipment. The list is approved in bylaws to prevent market operators from exceeding the limits of equipment being checked. These metrological standards also ensure the operation of medical equipment; they are sufficiently modern. In addition, we have developed a new set of standards not connected with equipment. These standards have been harmonised with ISO requirements and are designed to introduce digital technologies and computers into healthcare organisations, such as standard patient files and interface for the exchange of information between healthcare organisations. We have a set of such standards, and we are continuing to work on them, and I emphasise that they have been harmonised with international requirements. When launching large-scale projects in digital technologies and computerisation, one should rely on international experience. I think that set of standards will be applied in the near future.
Vladimir Putin: One of our key goals is to enhance energy efficiency, which is why relevant technical standards are so important.
Grigory Elkin: Last year we drafted a standardisation programme for energy efficiency. It consists of more than 700 items, from renewable energy to very simple measures. Look, this is a label that is widely used in the world, in particular in Europe and the United States. This label was designed according to special standards. We don't have such labels yet, although the government has issued a resolution on the general principles of marking products and insists that such information should be included in accompanying documents. This is a label (shows a label) widely used for washing machines and dryers. It is easily understandable; even though it is in English in this case, anyone would understand what it means. It shows clearly...
Vladimir Putin: It is in German, although English is a good language too.
Grigory Elkin: It is in German for goods produced in Germany, and in English in the United States; anyway, it has a standard form which the consumer can understand. I'd like to say that to become effective, the above government resolution should be complemented with 16 standards for different groups of equipment, which we intend to develop and submit in the first quarter of next year. Eight of these standards will stipulate requirements for energy efficiency and labelling principles. But we also need methods for determining this, and these methods should be harmonised. The other eight standards will cover methods of determining energy efficiency indicators, test methods, and methods to determine...
Vladimir Putin: Good. You said Russia holds third place in terms of measurement capability. What does this mean? And where should we go from here?
Grigory Elkin: In practice, it means that the government maintains a reference base that is third best after the United States and Germany according to international comparisons conducted by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and the number of measurements we can make. However, the measurements we are making in industry are far from ideal. But as better measurement methods are devised in industry we can ensure the required standards of their inspection, calibration and maintenance. This is why the government maintains primary standards at the institutes of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology.
Vladimir Putin: What are our goals in this sphere? Do you have any questions you think we should address and settle to maintain the existing standards, to prevent them from falling?
Grigory Elkin: I think we have sufficient capabilities now. The government has increased the funding for measurement systems considerably. I don't see major problems in this sphere; I see problems in standardisation rather than in metrology. We can maintain metrology standards at a very high level, but the problem with standardisation is that we are developing 90% of standards on government funding, which contradicts global trends. In other countries, business and industry take an active part in standardisation, lobbying their interests primarily through the development of international standards.
I will give you an example. We are not sufficiently active in Russia, although a Russian citizen was elected the ISO president early this year. I think this is proof of Russia's contribution, and we must use this opportunity. But we are still active in some respects. Take the biometric passports and biometric identification systems, which are being widely discussed. But few know that in fact it was the agency's team that is primarily introducing international standards in this sphere. The professionals of Bauman University are the core of this team. We are adopting standards in Russia before the international standards are approved. This is a good example of a possibility to lobby the interests of our industry. If we had, apart from knowledge, equipment also, it would have been at the top of the list in foreign markets.
Vladimir Putin: This is also being used in competitive struggle, for example regarding standards of aircraft noise, when our aircraft are pressurized, they are banned from flights [to Europe]...
Grigory Elkin: This is a good example, an excellent example...
Vladimir Putin: The same is true for motor vehicles, buses, and the like.