Friends,
It’s my pleasure to greet you here at the 36th International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) General Assembly. This St Petersburg forum has brought together over 600 leading experts and specialists from 140 countries.
You will be discussing a number of current issues related to national standards. Aligning your national standards with international requirements influences product quality and industrial safety and helps to eliminate trade barriers. And of course, it's hard to overestimate the importance of universal standards in those industries where noncompliance can endanger life or result in technological and environmental disaster.
I hope that the recommendations you work out during this conference will be put into practice and serve to strengthen cooperation in the field of standardisation.
I wish you a productive meeting and all the best. And I hope our foreign guests will enjoy St Petersburg, Russia’s Northern Capital.
Dmitry Medvedev