On 25 and 26 September at the Grand Tikal Futura Hotel the 9th national and 3rd Central American Congress on Quality will take place.
Organized by the Ministry of Economics, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and the Directorate of National Quality System (Incotec) and various business groups, the meeting will be held under the motto "Continuous improvement, strategy for competitiveness."
The Guatemalan Accreditation Office is the entity responsible for the accreditation system in Guatemala, evaluating testing and calibration laboratories at home and abroad.
From Diario de Centro América:
The Guatemalan Accreditation Office (OGA) at the Ministry of Economy (Mineco) is consolidating in Central America in the field of accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories in support of various productive sectors.
The Salvadoran Central Bank will launch in January a settlement system called LBT ("Liquidación Bruta en Tiempo Real", or "Real Time Settlement") .
This system will reduce the cost of economic transactions between individuals or organizations, currently inflated because of the commissions charged between banking operators.
Juan Alberto Hernández, from the Central Bank, said: "A company that needs to make a payment to someone outside the country would proceed to order it through his bank. The bank would then conduct the operation via the Central Bank. On antiquated systems, this transaction could take up to 10 days. In the meantime, companies lose interests. With modern systems, these 10 days could be reduced to seconds".
The Guatemala Office of Accreditation (OGA) could operate on an international scale with the formulas or procedures of laboratories, improving competitiveness of local products.
The OGA has been accepted as a member of the Multilateral Accord of Recognition of the Interamerican Cooperation of Accreditation.
Juan Alberto Hernñandez, director of the National Quality System, says the announcement will allow this office to accredit at an international level formulas or laboratory procedures without having to be recognized in the other country because its validity will be worldwide.