Navigating Vietnam's New Electrical Safety Standard: A Visit to MIC

                                                                                                                                                                                      

The Vietnam Ministry of Information & Communication (MIC) announced last year implementation of the “Regulations on the list of potentially unsafe products and goods” under their responsibility. These regulations include amongst other the new Vietnamese electrical safety standard for IT equipment, QCVN 132 (:2022/BTTTT) which is largely based on the international standard IEC 62368-1:2018.

Representatives from Nemko USA recently visited government officials at the MIC head quarter in Hanoi, in order to establish the best path for customers to comply with this new Vietnamese national safety standard, which is in force from 1 January this year.

The compliance to this standard can be demonstrated through test reports from MIC recognized laboratories. Currently, only Nemko USA have recognized laboratories for this standard outside Vietnam. Both the Nemko laboratories in San Diego and Austin have achieved this recognition.

The recognition is based on the existing statutory Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) between the US and Vietnam, which in the US is under the responsibility of NIST (the National Institute for Standards & Commerce, under the US Dept. of Commerce).

The basic purpose of Nemko’s visit to MIC was to learn details about how MIC and the Vietnamese telecom authority VNTA intend to apply the new standard through their regulatory process.

While in Hanoi, the Nemko group also met with local partners with whom they have well established cooperation to offer market access services for Vietnam.

For further information and/or certification for Vietnam, please contact Tom.Tidwell@nemko.com

(The article is based on the info provided by Tom Tidwell and edited by T.Sollie)