Standards in Trade:
Building and Construction Workshop
July 19-21, 2000

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NIST and the Directorate for Standards and Quality (STAMEQ) in Vietnam co-sponsoreda workshop on building and construction from July 19-21, 2000 in Hanoi, Vietnam.The workshop was supported by the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service (USFCS) inHanoi and the Institute for Building Science and Technology of Vietnam's Ministryof Construction. Six U.S. representativesand sixteen from Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Secretariat participated inthe workshop, which was attended by morethan two hundred people from Vietnamese agencies with interests in buildingand construction. Attendees came from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia,Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. In additionto NIST and USFCS, U.S. organizations included: InternationalCode Council, Inc. (ICC) ; InternationalAssociation of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) ; NationalFire Protection Association (NFPA) ; and, UnderwritersLaboratories, Inc. (UL) .

The three-day program featured presentationsby representatives from the United States and from throughout the SoutheastAsia region. They covered building codes and standards, model code organizations,standards development processes, market access requirements for building productsand materials, building regulatory systems, the code review and permitting process,and building design and regulatory interfaces. Ample opportunities were availablefor questions and answers and networking. Participants expressed great satisfactionat the extensive amount of information on the U.S. and Southeast Asian systemsexchanged during the program, and expressed the hope that this exchange wouldcontinue.

The workshop concluded with recommendations tocreate a building and construction working group within the Southeast Asia region;to place a NIST standards expert in Southeast Asia; and to continue cooperationin the building design and construction area.

For more information, please contact Christine DeVaux at: christine.devaux@nist.gov , tel. 301-975-4679, fax 301-963-2871.