Belarus, Russia approve plan to develop standards for plastics

The meeting took place in St. Petersburg on the sidelines of the 6th International Technology Forum, Russian Standardization Week 2026, under the chairmanship of Dmitry Basko, head of the Union State Committee on Standardization and Quality, Chairman of the State Committee for Standardization of Belarus. Heads of the central office of Gosstandart, BelGISS, BelGIM, the BGCA, and relevant authorities from the Russian Federation and the Standing Committee of the Union State took part in it both in person and online.

The participants discussed six organizational and practical issues. Anton Shalaev, Head of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology (Rosstandart), and Adviser to the Union State Secretary Aleksei Mednikov, were appointed deputy chairmen of the committee. A decision was also made to appoint secretaries in the near future, with two representatives from each side.

The committee’s work plan for 2026-2027 will be revised by 1 November. As Dmitry Basko emphasized, the main prerequisite for revising the plan is to fill it with practical measures that deliver concrete results within optimal timeframes.

“It is also important to remember that issues we consider in the bilateral format can subsequently be put forward for consideration by the EAEU. Once we have worked through relevant aspects and reached a consensus, we can move on to other integration platforms. This, too, would be a good practical result,” he said.

The meeting participants also examined the work of a specially established group tasked with drafting regulations for the Union State Standards Fund and approved the proposed draft document. The criteria for including standards in the fund are that they were developed under joint standardization programs, that they are Belarusian standards recognized for use in Russia, or that they are Russian standards introduced as state standards in Belarus. Documents must have been approved or reviewed for relevance within five years.

The Union State Standards Fund is intended to address practical needs, including determining which goods qualify as Union State goods. The fund’s standards are designed to remove technical barriers to trade between the member states, facilitate promising investment projects aimed at import substitution, and support the further use of these standards within international organizations and integration frameworks.

The participants also discussed the importance of digitalization in protecting the market and verifying conformity assessment documents and test reports for products placed on the market.

The parties decided to adjust the algorithm for compiling the list of priority standards to be developed on the Union State platform. Standardization programs will be drawn up specifying the objectives and expected results of the work and funding sources.

Six standardization plans are currently being implemented, providing for the development of 261 documents covering baby food, energy conservation, and energy efficiency, trucks, machine-tool manufacturing, electric buses, microwave technology, and microelectronics. Their implementation is proceeding according to plan: 30 standards have been approved; however, in the coming year the work should be intensified to get ahead of schedule.