Thanks to the able leadership of the chairman of ISO/TC 8 Ships and marine technology, Captain Charles Piersall, ISO has established strong relations with IMO and ISO is in the forefront of new Maritime security/Anti-terrorism against Shipping initiatives of IMO. One of the issues being addressed concerns electronic seals on containers and a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the chairmen of ISO/TC 8, TC 104 Freight containers and TC 204 Transport information and control systems to cover the multimodal freight distribution system. IMO has agreed to increase its reference to International Standards in its regulations and more than 100 projects are under preparation in this framework. As a relevant example, I would like to mention ISO 17631: 2002 Ships and marine technology - Shipboard plans for fire protection, life-saving appliances and means of escape. ISO/TC 8 is developing a strong activity in the field related to security and environmental protection.

　

At the beginning of the year, namely 14 February 2002, "Time Inc." one of the world's largest publishers shook the advertising production world with its announcement that all digital ads for its 56 titles must be in ISO PDF/X-1a format by 1 June of this year, i.e. in accordance with ISO 15930, which standardizes the use of the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) for the exchange of print-ready material. The ISO standard, which was published on 1 December 2001, obviously came on time and was immediately put to use by a major market player. Time Inc. has announced that they are considering going a step further in requesting the delivery of final content in PDF/X-3 format, i.e. ISO 15930, Part 3, which allows colour managed workflows as well as traditional workflows for intended output, as soon as it is published in 2002.

　

The former example shows the market relevance of the work of ISO/TC 130 Graphic technology. The project started in December 1997 and took 48 months, including the voting periods, from start-to-finish. The PDF/X-3 will replace the use of the TIFF/IT format (ISO 12639:1998) of undisputed value for preparing predictable "digital film" but generating large file sizes and practically useless as data for archival reference or cross-media purposes.

　

ISO/TC 130 has demonstrated its capacity of offering continual improvement of its standards for the benefit of the market.

　

The most productive individual committee in 2001 was still ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information technology with 104 standards or 12,8 % of the total annual production. The annual production has, however, substantially decreased from 212 in 1998, 186 in 1999 and 147 in 2000. This decrease is probably connected to an explosion of industry fora or consortia established by interested companies.

　

This evolution calls for a reassessment by our formal standards infrastructure of our conventional way of developing standards and use of new innovative methods for reaching agreements on normative documents suitable for the needs of fast-moving technologies. But, as Mike Smith, our Director, Standards, put it, ISO is no "Sleeping Beauty" - and it has reacted to serve the market and fulfil user needs. As you know, ISO has streamlined its procedures and introduced new deliverables for cases where fast development is a must.

　

These new deliverables were introduced in 1998 and are being slowly discovered by potential users. ISO is surely not a "Sleeping Beauty" but I sometimes have the impression that it is a "super tanker" in the sense that the effect of a turn of the ship's wheel takes an awful lot of time to result in an alteration of the vessel's course. To date, only 6 documents have been published as new deliverables, none of them by JTC 1 but by other committees dealing with fast-moving technologies. It has to be noted, however, that 57 Technical Specifications replacing the Technical Reports have been published.

　

We have to do more to explain to the market players the potential benefits they can draw from these new deliverables. This should not be left primarily to the Central Secretariat but could more effectively be done by you the ISO members, who are in direct contact with the interested industry sectors and can promote these new deliverables by explaining the potential benefits so that ISO remains relevant also for fast-moving technologies.

　

At its April 2001 meeting, Council recognized once again the importance of information technology and launched a joint action with IEC to maintain the continued effectiveness of JTC 1. In April 2002, ISO Council asked Mark Hurwitz, of ANSI, to take necessary initiatives with his IEC counterpart to ensure progress is made. We look forward to the results of this action before end 2002.

　

Please do not interpret my message more negatively than intended. Many of the standards prepared by the subcommittees of JTC 1, such as the famous JPEG and MPEG, the latter being at its fourth edition (MPEG-4) in 2002, are very well accepted by the market. Moreover, JTC 1 has demonstrated its capacity for reacting quickly to market requirements by establishing a new subcommittee on Biometric technologies that will be very important for the implementation of anti-terrorism policies. However, we have to note that ISO is active in a competitive market here and has to react and reinforce its link with top management in the IT industries. It also has to be recalled that JTC 1 is not the only TC working on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and many others are too, as computers become pervasive in all industry sectors.

　

It is expected that a report of the Secretary-General must mention briefly the ISO 9000 series of standards, which is still a best seller, well received by the market, and a welcome source of revenue.

　

Members will have noted the results of the 11^th cycle of the ISO survey showing that ISO 9001 certification/registration in 2001 experienced another year of strong growth by 25 % to 510 000 and ISO 14000 by 60 % to 37000.

　

The second edition of the handbook "ISO 9001 for small businesses - What to do", has been very well received and published as a joint venture with the WTO/UNCTAD International Trade Centre, which will facilitate its dissemination.

　

Sector-specific applications are under development and ISO 15161 has been published for the food and drink industry and ISO/TS 16949 will ultimately replace QS 9000 for the automotive sector. It is also interesting to note that DGN, the ISO member for Mexico, has proposed the preparation of an International Workshop Agreement (IWA) for the application of ISO 9001 to education.

　

With regard to auditing, a step forward has been taken and ISO 19011 Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing should be published in time for this General Assembly.

　

In conclusion, the preparation and production of ISO standards is relatively satisfactory but will require the attention of the Technical Management Board to maintain and increase their relevance for the market. The staff of the Standards department has been reinforced with an expert seconded by JISC, who should play an important diplomatic and coordinating role in helping to foster new ISO standardization initiatives, either by restructuring and revitalizing some of our existing standardization programmes or by addressing new areas wherever possible in cooperation with international or broadly-based regional partner organizations.

　

The second major core business of ISO is the dissemination of the ISO standards to the users, either through national adoption of the ISO standards or sales through member bodies or direct sales from the Central Secretariat.

　

At the Beijing General Assembly in 1999, the Secretary-General reported three major trends. The effect of these trends has been confirmed as can be seen from the next slide

A decrease in hard-copy sales has occurred more rapidly than anticipated. Revenue from copyright, however, has partly compensated the decrease and the introduction of the ISO Web store has improved the sales revenue demonstrating a broad interest of the market for electronic versions of our standards.

　

The increase in national adoptions is in fact positive for the Organization as it fulfils the major objectives of the Organization, namely to have harmonized standards that serve global industry and world trade, but it has to be noted that it affects the revenue of the Central Secretariat and will increasingly do so in the future.

　

However, the impact of these new developments on the global ISO delivery system is tangible, their evolution difficult to predict and you should be aware that, in the years to come, the revenue structure for the Central Secretariat may change and that some of the existing commercial policies may have to be reviewed and may have consequences for the members. Council is considering this issue with the help of its standing committees for Strategies and Finance and its Commercial Policy Steering Group (CPSG).