The International Accreditation Service (IAS) recognized June 9 as World Accreditation Day by promoting the theme — Accreditation: Facilitating World Trade. More than 60 countries participated in the global initiative established by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). IAS is a recognized accreditation body and a signatory member of both ILAC and IAF, which provide the infrastructure necessary for consumers in different countries to have confidence in the safety of goods traded on the world market.

"Regulators in different countries set overall policy and technical requirements for products entering their marketplace and then rely on accredited laboratories, inspection agencies and certification bodies to check for compliance with these safeguards," said IAS President Chuck Ramani (pictured left). Accreditation by IAS, and other accreditation bodies recognized by ILAC and IAF, is the accepted method for determining the technical competence, reliability and integrity of testing and calibration laboratories, inspection agencies and product certification bodies. "When IAS accredits an organization, that organization's reports are accepted by regulators worldwide," said Ramani. This globally accepted accreditation process makes it economically feasible for companies to export or import products to meet market demands.

International trade represents a significant share of the gross domestic product of most countries—latest figures from the World Trade Organization (for 2011) put the dollar value of world merchandise trade at $18.2 trillion and the value of world commercial services exports at $4.1 trillion.

Accreditation is a formal, independent verification that a program, institution or company meets established quality standards and is competent to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks. Accreditation has been used for more than 50 years as the definitive means to evaluate organizations. It is used by the world's major economies and many developing economies.

IAS accredits more than 670 organizations across 14 accreditation programs and in 25-plus countries.

Watch the World Accreditation Day video.