Dr. Hidetaka Imai, Chairman of APMP

During the 21st (CGPM) meeting held last October in Paris, the CIPM officially designated May 20 as World Metrology Day. The Metre Convention was inaugurated on May20, 1875. In May 2000, two memorial events, the 125th anniversary of the Metre Convention and the establish ment of World Metrology Day, were held in the Asia Pacific region.

On May 12 in Singapore, the Singapore Productivity and Standards Board (PSB) organized a CEO Breakfast Meet ing with a presentation by Dr. Terry Quinn, Director of the BIPM, followed by a seminar entitled "World Metrology Day Seminar-Global Measurement, Global Access," in conjunction with the celebration of 25 years of metrology development in Singapore. At the above seminar, seven speakers delegated from the BIPM, EUROMET (United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands), APMP (Japan) and Singapore gave lectures on topics such as "Global MRA," "The role of Metrology," "Application of Measurement Science in Industries," "International Collaboration in Metrology," "Regional Coperation towards Global Harmonization, " and "lnternationa Collaboration Based on Traceability Systems. " During the seminar, panel discussions also were held between the lecturers and the floor. From morning to night, including refreshment and lunch breaks, fruitful discussions were conducted between the seminar lecturers and the audience, which was principally derived from private companies.

On May 19 in Tokyo, the second Intemational Symposium on Measurement Standards in Japan was held to celebrate the founding of World Metrology Day, hosted by the Japanese Standards Association (JSA) with support from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Lecturers for the seminar were invited from Germany (PTB), the USA. (ISA), Thailand and Japan. In the seminar, presentations were made on several topics, including "Quality System Management based on ISO/IEC Guide 25 (now ISO/IEC 17025)," Assessment of Measurement Uncertainty," Measurement Standards System in the EU," "Trends of Confomity Assessment in the USA," "Establishment of Measurement Standards in Thailand," and "Measurement Standards in Company Globalization." A panel discussion was also arranged between the lecturers and the audience. More than 400 participants registered. Effective discussions on the role of Global MRA, Quality Management in measurement science, and industry's requirements for the worldwide traceabilty system were held. The secretariat of this symposium (JSA) plans to set up an annual international meeting on measurement standards (see figure).

The next two big events to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Metre Convention will be the memorial seminar and the fourth meeting of Directors of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs), which are being planned for October 2000 at theParis Symposium. Nobel Laureates who made distinguished contributions to measurement science have been invited to give presentations. At the fourth business meeting of Directors of NMIs, the concept of a BIPM database on Global MRA and progress in implementing the MRA itself will be discussed.