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OICA Welcomes New Agreement on Global Automotive Standards

26 June 1998

OICA Welcomes New Agreement on Global Automotive Standards

    GENEVA, Switzerland, June 25 -- The following is a statement
by Andrew H. Card, Jr., President of the International Organization of Motor
Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA), regarding events this week at the Geneva meeting
of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Working Party 29:

    "The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA)
welcomes the successful completion of the United Nations Agreement on Global
Technical Standards as a major development in the effort to harmonize global
automotive standards.
    "Automotive regulations and testing procedures currently vary across
countries.  These variations have substantially little impact on improving
vehicle safety or environmental protection.  Instead, they increase the costs
of vehicle development and production by requiring automakers to design, test
and build vehicles differently for different global markets.  Variations in
regulations and test procedures create significant nontariff trade barriers
that reduce choices for consumers and marketing opportunities for all
manufacturers.
    "The Agreement on Global Technical Standards seeks to eliminate these
nontariff barriers by providing a forum in which its signatories can discuss
differences in regulations and work together to achieve uniform global
standards.  The agreement is a significant step forward in the international
effort to reduce the duplicative testing and overlapping standards that burden
consumers and manufacturers around the world."

    Known in Europe as the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs
d'Automobiles, OICA is a Paris-based organization made up of forty national
trade associations of motor vehicles manufacturers from around the world.
Visit OICA's site on the World Wide Web at http://www.oica.net.