Russian National Standards

GOST R is the system of national standards of Russia. It defines the main requirements for quality of products and services that are specific for the Russian Federation only.

GOST R (Russian: ГОСТ Р) is an acronym for государственный стандарт России (gosudarstvennyy standart Rossii), which means state standard of Russia.

Historically, GOST R system originated from GOST system developed in the Soviet Union and later adopted by the CIS. Thus, the GOST standards are used across all CIS countries, including Russia while GOST R standards are valid only within the territory of the Russian Federation.

This system is aimed at providing the Customer with safety and high quality of products and services. This right of the Customer for safety and quality is guaranteed by obligatory certification of not only native but as well foreign produce. Produce that enters the territory of the Russian Federation and that is subject to obligatory certification according to the legislation of the Russian Federation must meet the requirements of Russian certification system.

List of products subject to obligatory certification is defined by Gosstandart and can be seen on www.gost.ru. The very system of certification GOST R has been valid in Russia for many years. The main normative base for it was national standards. At the same time active policy of Russia towards entering the WTO was the reason for adopting the federal law “About Technical Regulation” № 184-ФЗ. This law was designed to match Russian and European legislation in the sphere of technical regulation.

The voluntary and obligatory certification systems in Russia

Creation of certification systems in Russia is provided by the Federal Law №184 “About Technical Regulation” Evaluating the product’s conformity to requirements of laws, standards, technical reglaments and other kinds of normative appears to be one of the most important possibilities of providing safety of different kinds of products for humans, environment and the state.

According to the FL № 184 any certification system includes:

A central certification organ which performs organizational operations within the system;
Certification organs that must prove their ability to perform activities in expertise and drawing up the certification documents in certain sphere of evaluation of conformity. Only certification organs authorized for such kinds of works, have right to perform such function;
Certification laboratories performs tests and measurements of safety indicators or quality of the evaluated objects. Such laboratory must have equipment and trained staff (as well as test methods) in order to perform its activities. Existence of all the resources is proved by the Attestation of Authorization of the laboratory in the certain sphere of activity;
Applicants are individual entrepreneurs or Russian legal entities (in some cases foreign manufacturers), that intend to go though evaluation process to prove the conformity of their production to the legal requirements or some other certain requirements of the system of certification (to which it applied).

There is a great variety of objects for certification (different products and manufacturing processes, management systems, construction sites, etc.). A little smaller is the lists of risks that you may encounter by using the products and from which you should protect the consumer. The variety of certification systems in Russia is explained by these two factors as well as by the wish of some corporations to introduce their own requirements for the products deliverers.

There two big groups of certification systems in Russia: voluntary and obligatory ones. From the names it is clear that the evaluation of conformity for the objects of obligatory certification system appears to be mandatory requirement for all Russian manufacturers and for the products from abroad.

The obligatory certification system of Russia

It is only federal state structure who can create the obligatory certification system of Russia. The system must go through the procedure of state registration. The Rosstandart which is responsible for the certification in Russia as a whole keeps a registry of the RF certification systems. Only after receiving the Certificate of state registration with getting the unique registration number, you may perform activities in evaluating conformity as a new system.

There are 16 obligatory certification systems in Russia:

GOST R;
Means of protection of information according to requirements of informational security;
“Electrocommunication”;
Geodesic, cartographic and topographic production;
On the federal Railway transport;
Means of protection of information;
Security of manufacturing of explosives;
In the sphere of fire security;
Means of protection of information according to requirements of security;
Marine civil vessels;
On the air transport of the RF;
Air techniques and the objects of civil aviation;
Space craft;
For nuclear sets, the points of storing radioactive materials;
Means of protecting the information that include the state secret;
Immune biological preparations.

The obligatory certification system GOST R

The obligatory GOST R certification system consists of sub-systems of certificating homogeneous products. The obligatory GOST R certification system consists of 40 sub-systems according to the kinds of homogeneous production. For example the following sub-systems:

Medical certification;
The system of certification oil products;
The system of certification of dishes;
The system of certification of electrical equipment (SCE);
The system of certification of mechanic transport means and trailers;
The system of certification of gases;
The “SEPROCHIM” certification system (rubber, asbestos) and many others.

The management of state property in the sphere of technical regulation, organizing an performing works in certification in the GOST R system is performed by the Rostechregulation (former Gosstandart) which appears to be the Federal agency for technical regulation and metrology (now is called Rosstandart). The given agency is part of he structure of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the RF.

It became the very first and the largest system of evaluation of conformity in Russia and it encompasses all the groups of production that are to be evaluated according to the Federal Law “About protection of Consumers Rights” and it performs the other legislative acts considering separate kinds of goods The authority of the GOST R obligatory certification systems covers also the voluntary GOST R certification system because the applicants for the voluntary evaluation of conformity most often apply this very system.

The voluntary certification systems of Russia

Any Russian citizen may register such evaluation system according to the Law. While creating the system you must set the list of objects to be evaluated on conformity in its frameworks, the indicators and characteristics in accordance to which the voluntary certification will be performed, you must also formulate the rules of system and the pay order of the works in certification, and you must define the participants of the given system of evaluation of conformity.

Registration of voluntary certification system is similar to the procedure of registration of the obligatory system. In the case of refusal, the Rosstandart sends to the applicant explanations of reasons why the new system may not be registered. Nowadays there are more than 130 central certification organs that went through the registration procedure.

Here are the examples of voluntary certification:

Construction materials “Rosstroisertificazia”;
Personnel and housing services – “Roszhilkommunsertifikazia”;
Means of cryptographic protection of information;
The production of the Gosstandart of Russia;
Production and the quality systems defense industries – “Oboronsertifika”;
Certification of food “HAASP”;
Coal production;
Jewelry (several systems in the given sphere with different names;
Bio active materials – “BOSTI”;
Services in the sphere of advertising;
Evaluation of intellectual property objects;
Information technologies – “SSIT”.

Corporative voluntary certification systems

Fuel and energy complex (The System “Teksert”);
Equipment for the oil-gas industry “Neftegaz”;
Production and services “Technosert”;
GAZPROMSERT;

Regional national certification systems of

Trading services in Mocow;
Trading services “Tulasert”;
Services of gas stations and complexes in Moscow;
Fuel services in the Moscow Region;
Services of retail sale in the Sakhalin Region;
Services of retail sale in the Rpublic of Sakha (Yakutia);
Services of gas stations and complexes of the Urals Region “URALSERT-AZS”;
Services of retail sale in St. Petersburg and others.

External links

Basic certification in Russia