History of Standardization

Standardization is the process through which consensus standards are prepared and published through specified procedures with the participation of all interested parties of the national economy.

Standards are documents with widespread and repeatable use that include rules, principles, guidelines or characteristics which assure that the products, materials, services or procedures concerned conform to the proposed objectives.

Standards do consist a common language ensuring reliability in the free movement of products, materials and services. Through standards trade is promoted on a national and international level.

There exists archeological evidence which indicates that the use of standards in Cyprus begun from the ancient times. On a national and consistent basis standards started being used at the beginning of the 20th century during the British Colonial Administration in the field of Public Works (road and building construction) with the implementation of British Standards. This practice continued and after the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960.

The principles of Standardization have been introduced on a nationwide and systematic basis in the mid seventies after the establishment of the Cyprus Organization for Standards and Control of Quality by corresponding legislation (N.68/75).

In 2002 through the Standardization, Accreditation and Technical Information Law (N.156(I)/2002) the activities of standardization have been allocated to the Cyprus Certification Company, which is now known as the Cyprus Organization For Standardization (CYS).