China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS)
10. March 2023The China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment, referred to in the following text by its abbreviation “CNAS”, is responsible for the accreditation of certification companies, laboratories and inspectors. The department is under the authority of the Certification and Accreditation Authority of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA) and is authorized by the CNCA to issue inspection certificates in accordance with legal requirements.
The CNAS was founded on 31 March 2006 and was formed from the merger of the accreditation body for certification service providers CNAB and the accreditation body for laboratories CNAL. The organizational structure of the CNAS consists of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, the Technical Committee for the Certification Body, the Technical Committee for Laboratories, the Technical Committee for the Inspection Body, the Evaluation Committee, the Complaints Handling Committee, the Consumer Committee and the Secretariat. The CNAS Board consists of members from 65 organizations, which in turn represent five stakeholder groups: the Chinese government, conformity assessment bodies, conformity assessment service customers, conformity assessment users and technical experts.
The mission of CNAS is to promote the work of conformity assessment bodies and to support their development in accordance with legal standards and regulations. CNAS helps conformity assessment bodies to perform their services as independent, scientifically correct and with accurate results. The CNAS is active in international cooperation and is considered a recognized partner. Thus, it is a member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the Asia-Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC).
In summary, the work of the CNAS is to determine whether a laboratory or inspection body may operate as a nationally accredited testing body. The assessment for this follows the ISO standard 17025. Upon completion of a successful CNAS accreditation, the company receives a certificate and is listed on a national directory.
For the product tests which are part of the CCC certification a CNAS accreditation is necessary.
