Nguyen Van Khanh from the Radio Frequency Department, an arm of the Ministry of Information and Communication, said from 2011 to September 2012, the EMC division of the department tested 1,700 standards in 1,000 kinds of products, including information technology products (desktops, tablet PCs, servers, printing machines), radio equipment (wifi equipment, Bluetooth, FM broadcasting equipment), BTS antenna.

In the near future, when the Ministry of Science and Technology issues the sets of standards on electrical and household electronic products, the EMC division would measure the electronic compatibility of the equipment in order to satisfy the requirements of electrics and electronics manufacturers and importers.

Also according to Khanh, most of the equipment to be measured are imports, while only a small proportion of products, including computers, tablets, maritime warning devices, broadcasting equipment, is assembled domestically. The products, mostly made by CMS and Hanel, just account for five percent of the equipment to be subject to the measuring.

As for information technology equipment like computers, enterprises have been asked to measure EMC themselves and make public the measuring results themselves. However, many of them ignored the work and they only did this when they were inspected by the local information and communication departments.

Khanh said the biggest problem of domestically-made products is that the manufacturers use low quality power supply units which causes some problems to other equipment used by the families.

However, he has recognized a considerable improvement in the quality of domestically made computers with the amount of substandard products decreasing year after year. Most of the products which cannot meet standards are the ones made by the enterprises which for the first time have products tested.

He added that when EMC began operation, 90 percent of products, including the ones made by big companies, were found as not meeting the standards.

Post-production verification to be strengthened

According to Khanh, during the operation, EMC division has been meeting a lot of difficulties. Since the numbers of measuring equipment and laboratories are modest (one equipment is used for several measuring operations), EMC can carry out three operations at the same moment at maximum, while it takes a lot of time to measure equipment due to the lack of laboratories.

Analysts have pointed out that a lot of information technology and radio products available on the market have not been tested in EMC as required. Meanwhile, only sample products are tested, which means that problems may still exist in other products of the same batches of goods.

Therefore, EMC believes that it is necessary to strengthen the inspection over the quality of products, especially the ones made or assembled domestically.

There are two factors that make the EMC testing become more urgent than ever. First, Vietnam has been integrating more deeply into the regional economies (ASEAN, APEC and WTO), the following of international standards in EMC is a must.

Second, Vietnam needs to pursue the EMC regulations for the sake of the Vietnam’s economy itself.