Greetings from the Chairman of the APMP

I am glad to have this opportunity to offer seasonal greetings at the beginning of the year 2000 and to briefly introduce the new chairman and secretariat from Tsukuba, Japan. Over the past years, many international discussion meetings have been organized and held by CIPM/BIPM, OIML, ILAC, ISO/IEC and other related international organizations.

is confidence with both technical matters and human relations, which is gained by maintaining continuous partnerships with fellow metrologists.

I believe that we had a very good General Assembly (GA) meeting in Hsinchu, Chinese Taipei, last November where we were joined by distinguished metrologists from the BIPM, EUROMET, and SIM.

The primary objectives of these meetings were to gain a consensus on a mutual recognition arrangement or agreement (MRA) and to formulate general rules for the accreditation of international and national measurement standards and traceability systems.

The APMP has a twenty-two-year history. It has made great progress in the past few years under the distinguished leadership of the immediate past chairman Dr. Barry Inglis, the excellent secretary Dr. Angela Samuel, and the Australian

Secretariat. The new chairman and secretariat from Japan are very happy to be their successors; however, many issues must be resolved before we can reach an overall consensus within our economies. We hope to establish strong contacts within our Asia-Pacific region through face-to-face discussions and network correspondence with the member economies. I would like to ask members of the Executive Committee, chairpersons of the nine Technical Committees, and members of the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) Advisory Committee to extend their support and counsel to the new secretariat.

I have been working in the field of mechanical and dimensional metrology at NRLM and have experience as a member of CIML, APLMF, APLAC, IMEKO (International Measurement Confederation), ISO/REMCO (Reference Materials), and some other technical committees of ISO. I participated in consultative committee meetings such as CCU and CCQM at the Metre Convention. These experiences taught me that the most important factor in the field of metrology

We had many busy preliminary meetings during the GA and engaged in many discussions on the concept of Calibration Measurement Capability (CMC)(CMC) based on the results of key comparisons in the Global MRA. The consensus that was achieved at the 15th GA in APMP indicated that closer contacts between each TC in APMP and related TCs in other RMOs have been established in these few months.

Establishment of a higher-level traceability chain within the region will be the first objective during the term of the new chairman and secretary. Toward this end, the following three issues will be raised:

1. Clarification of the activities of each TC through correspondence with other RMOs.
2. Evaluation of Appendix C in each TC and EC, and its submission to Joint Committee of the RMOs and the BIPM (JCRB).
3. Planning of a seminar or workshop for the developing economies in APEC and liaison with other regional organizations in APEC.

Finally, I would like to express again my sincere thanks to Dr. Barry Inglis and Dr. Angela Samuel for their consideration in transferring the secretariat. I hope to see an exchange of opinions and information between member economies through our homepage and newsletters, which will be published seasonally.

January, 2000

Hidetaka Imai, NRLM