On June 9, the 19th “World Recognition Day” arrived as scheduled.
This year coincides with the first year of the Global Accreditation Cooperation (Global ACI)’s official operation after integrating the original International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). The international theme of this year’s “World Accreditation Day” is “Innovation, Trust and Sustainable Development: The Power of Accreditation”, and the domestic theme focuses on “Certification, Accreditation, Inspection and Testing: Innovation and Development of New Productivity”.
It was recently learned that as the central city of the country and the core engine of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou is based on its millennium history as a commercial city. With certification, accreditation, inspection and testing as the link, it adheres to the “simultaneous development of industry and commerce and the integration of the two industries”, accelerates the cultivation of new productive forces, and continues to deliver “Guangzhou’s answers” in global quality governance.
The world-class quality technical service system has taken shape
In urban competition, quality comes first; the foundation of quality lies in trust.
In the recently released “Guangzhou Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development”, certification, accreditation, inspection and testing are mentioned many times.
The plan clearly states that it is necessary to improve the inspection and testing service level of key industries such as new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, new displays, and biomedicine; strengthen high value-added producer service sectors such as testing and certification; promote the high-end development of the professional service industry, strengthen and improve inspection, testing, and certification industries, and cultivate internationally competitive service institutions and brands.
These strategic plans are strategic upgrades based on strong strength.
Guangzhou is one of the cities that started its certification, accreditation, inspection and testing business earlier in my country.
From the establishment of the Guangzhou Commodity Inspection Bureau in 1929, to the issuance of the first third-party product certification certificate in 1982, to the launch of the construction of the country’s first national inspection and testing high-tech service industry cluster, the implementation of the “one district, three parks” layout.
A century-old fire has been passed down from generation to generation, and today it has become a powerful force.
The city has been approved to have a total of 38 national quality inspection centers (third in the country), 4 national industrial measurement and testing centers, as well as national platforms such as the General Administration Key Laboratory, Technology Innovation Center, and Quality Standards Laboratory. Its testing capabilities basically cover all industrial categories, and its service capabilities rank first in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
As of the end of 2025, the city has 1,138 certified inspection and testing institutions, accounting for 23% of the province; it has issued 42.55 million inspection reports throughout the year, accounting for 40% of the province; it has 134 certification institutions, and a total of more than 110,000 certification certificates have been issued.
The scale and volume rank first in the country.
More importantly, global testing and certification giants regard Guangzhou as a strategic location.
Among the top ten international institutions, nine have established branches in Guangzhou; six leading domestic institutions have their headquarters in Guangzhou.
Since 2025, leading companies such as Huamei, Rhineland, and South Germany have increased investment and expanded production in Guangzhou.
A world-class quality technical service system with complete elements and strong radiation has taken shape as the core engine of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
This is Guangzhou’s confidence in cultivating new productive forces during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period and its strength in deeply participating in global quality governance.
Inspection, testing and certification have become the “key variables” for industrial upgrading
Manufacturing is the foundation of a city, and commerce is the foundation of a city.
Guangzhou’s “15th Five-Year Plan” clearly calls for promoting both industry and commerce and deepening the “integration of the two industries.”
It is necessary to promote the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries and realize the coordinated development of manufacturing and commerce. Inspection, testing and certification are the “quality collaboration hub” that connects this strategic closed loop.
Guangzhou has guided testing agencies to strengthen capacity building around strategic industries such as intelligent connected vehicles, new energy storage, low-altitude economy, semiconductors and integrated circuits.
Support the Guangzhou automobile industry to create nationally designed chips and achieve 100% localized design of 1,004 chips in 382 models of the seven major domain control systems of the vehicle.
Promote the approval and establishment of national quality inspection centers for new power system digital sensing and control products, intelligent connected vehicles, etc.
In the fields of new energy storage, rail transit, large aircraft tires, deep-sea anti-corrosion materials, etc., guide institutions to obtain testing qualifications.
The city’s six industrial chains, including new energy storage and high-end equipment manufacturing, have been included in the country’s 100 key quality chain projects, accounting for two-thirds of the province’s total.
It took the lead in supporting the first batch of cross-regional quality linkage projects of five general administrations, and deeply participated in 31 cross-regional quality linkage improvement landmark projects in six provinces.
In the strong quality chain cooperation of the Guangdong-Qingdao textile and apparel industry, the world’s first “3H Plateau Polar Product Certification and Evaluation System” was innovatively established.
All 11 districts in the city have been selected into the national and provincial quality county cultivation lists.
At the same time, Guangzhou gives full play to its advantages in commercial circulation and promotes the deep integration of testing and certification services with professional markets, cross-border e-commerce and other commercial formats.
Through the “same line, same standard, same quality” project, the two-way circulation blockage of domestic and foreign trade products has been opened; relying on the Guangzhou workstation of the Guangdong Provincial Domestic and Foreign Trade Inspection, Testing and Certification Integration Alliance, the cost of export-to-domestic certification has been reduced by an average of 40%, and the processing time has been shortened by 30%.
This is the vivid practice of “simultaneous development of industry and commerce” – the manufacturing side is escorted by testing, the trade side is opened with certification, industry and commerce are coordinated, and both quality and efficiency are improved.
In addition, Guangzhou has built 45 one-stop quality service stations, serving a total of 24,000 market entities of various types.
The service case of “boosting the development of the smart home industry” in the field of artificial intelligence has been included in the “One-stop” Service Technical Guidelines for Quality Infrastructure of the New Generation Information Technology Industry” by the State Administration for Market Regulation.
In 2025, the National Industrial Chain Quality Improvement Experience Exchange On-site Promotion Meeting was held in Guangzhou, which affirmed Guangzhou’s experience and practices in supporting the high-quality development of the industrial chain with inspection and testing services.
Let “Guangzhou Testing and Certification” escort “Guangzhou Goods Traveling World”
When quality services are deeply integrated into the blood of the industry, trust begins to move from the workshop to the world.
The trading partners of Guangzhou’s foreign trade enterprises cover the whole world.
How to make “Guangzhou goods” not only able to get out, but also able to get in and stand firm?
The answer lies in using testing and certification as a link to allow manufacturing advantages and trade advantages to resonate at the same frequency in the global market.
In particular, Guangzhou is moving from “implementing standards” to “defining standards”.
Successfully created a “standard international innovative city” and promoted the first technical committee secretariat in the field of ISO energy storage, the secretariat of the China-Laos Electric Power Standards Cooperation Committee, and the chairman unit of the IEEE Smart Home International Alliance to settle in Guangzhou.
The city has led or participated in the development of 208 international standards and 249 “Bay Area standards”, and has obtained 40 “Bay Area Certification” certificates.
The “Traditional Chinese Medicine – Photoluminescence Detection Method of Irradiated Chinese Medicines” led by the Municipal Drug Inspection Institute is the first ISO international standard for traditional Chinese medicine in my country’s drug regulatory system; the “Determination of Fipronil and its Metabolites Residues in Eggs and Egg Products – Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry” led by the Guangzhou Institute of Quality Inspection is the world’s first ISO egg testing standard.
In the past, it followed standards, but now Guangzhou participates in defining standards, and its voice in the global testing and certification field has significantly increased.
At the same time, Guangzhou encourages local institutions to set sail overseas.
Relying on the national new energy vehicle technical trade measures research and evaluation base (Guangzhou), a total of 21,039 notifications and early warning information have been issued since January 2022 to help companies reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Encourage institutions to expand overseas and drive enterprise “groups” to go overseas.
Currently, a total of 34 institutions in Guangzhou have obtained overseas qualifications and mutual recognition of authorizations. Many leading institutions are actively building laboratories overseas, driving “Guangzhou testing and certification” to accompany “Guangzhou goods” to serve the world.
This “standards + inspection + service” integrated overseas model injects new connotations of global competition into “simultaneous development of industry and commerce and integration of the two industries” – winning the market with manufacturing quality, winning trust with testing and certification, and winning scale with business network.
2026 is the first year of the “15th Five-Year Plan”.
Standing at a new historical juncture, Guangzhou is not far away from mountains and seas, nor is it far away from thousands of miles.
Facing the future, the relevant person in charge of the Guangzhou Municipal Administration for Market Regulation said: It will focus on the “15th Five-Year Plan”, benchmark international rules, continue to improve quality infrastructure, expand industrial clusters, and make efforts in the city’s four major directions of industrial innovation, foreign trade upgrading, people’s livelihood security, and green development. It will use high-level quality services to empower economic improvement, opening up and people’s livelihood improvement, and fully empower high-quality economic and social development.
