One of the most important standardization events in China—the annual National Standardization Work Conference was held on February 28 in Beijing, which summarized the standardization work in 2022 and arranged the key tasks this year.

SAMR Vice Minister and SAC Administrator Tian Shihong stressed that we should promote standards application in all economic and social sectors, facilitate the high-level openness to promote the standardization development at both national and international levels, and reinforce efficient governance to transform the standardization development towards quality and efficiency.

Another important standardization meeting was also convened in February in Europe. The Cybersecurity Standardization Conference 2023 took place in Brussels, Belgium to discuss how European standardization supports the EU cybersecurity legislation, which was jointly organized by ENISA, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. The EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW column presents readers the highlights of the meeting and insightful speeches given by renowned experts.

Just as CENELEC President Wolfgang Niedziella said, “European standardization plays a key strategic role in strengthening Europe’s collective resilience against cyber threats and ensuring that all citizens and businesses can benefit from trustworthy and reliable products, services and processes.”

Recently, China released the Outline of Boosting China’s Quality Strength, a national strategic guiding document that sets the goals of improving the overall quality of products, services and projects and raising people’s sense of satisfaction by 2025. The SPECIAL REPORT column will help you have a brief understanding of the Outline.

The STANDARDS PRACTICE column showcases how Taizhou city in Zhejiang province has carried out the standardization practice of government services to realize scientific management, reduce redundant efforts and improve service efficiency and quality. As a result, standardized government services have saved over 380,000 hours a year, and Taizhou ranked the top in the business environment evaluation of Zhejiang in 2021.

Spring is the time of making plans and launching projects. Let’s embrace the beautiful spring and go ahead with the plans!