Bottled water: UAE plans certification

Waleed bin Falah Al Mansouri, Director-General of Esma, said that this proposed step is aimed at the better regulation and control of a vital consumer sector through the setting of high quality standards for the manufacture and bottling of drinking water in the UAE. This legislation, he added, would be issued with the cooperation of all the federal and local jurisdictional bodies in the country.

Al Mansouri called for the establishment of a special task force, which would be tasked with overseeing the compliance of all products to UAE standards. Local manufacturers would be encouraged to enrol in the Emirates Conformity Assessment system (Ecas), which is considered one of the leading programmes in the region.

“Moreover, it has been agreed to establish a permanent committee to produce a cooperation mechanism between Esma and all government bodies in the UAE who deal with water quality. The first step will be through the application of thorough testing at the municipalities’ laboratories to acquire the conformity certificate,” Al Mansouri said.

Obaid bin Essa Ahmed, Under-Secretary for the General Secretariat of Municipalities, said: “It has been agreed to give all of the local factories and companies producing bottled water in the country a grace period to develop and upgrade their current facilities to meet UAE quality standards. For the time being it has also been agreed that government laboratories will be used to test all products. If local facilities are not available, private certified labs can be utilised.”