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About us – how we got to where we
are
Single Market Ventures is
a private company, founded in 1988, located in Brussels,
and independent of any manufacturing, distribution, testing,
certification, government or other organisation. The scope
of our activity has broadened over time, but we have maintained
our focus on the implications, for policy and business development,
of the progress towards use of common standards in cross-border
trade.
We began with a concentration on European technical
harmonisation, at a time when Europe was going through the
most important phase of its regional trade integration.
Through the European Single Market, the notion of
cross-border one-stop approval became a reality for
the first time in the world, even if only within one region.
And the total European market was so large that the whole
world was interested in its implications. We began by providing
information and advice on those European technical harmonisation
programmes, to clients inside and outside Europe. We have
consistently maintained an independent stance.
While we still cover those constantly evolving programmes,
we have also broadened our activity over time, in three directions:
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Geographical: our work has spread
far beyond Europe, and we now examine the implications
of global harmonisation programmes, not just European.
The World Trade Organisation took over many of the European
principles of one-stop approval in its Technical Barriers
to Trade Agreement of 1995. Other regions of the
world, such as APEC or ASEAN, have made varying degrees
of progress towards regional integration. International
standards programmes have steadily risen in importance,
often driven by the private sector, while governments
have steadily moved to broader harmonisation of policies
in fields such as energy efficiency and medical devices.
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Content: as the fields covered
by harmonisation of this kind have expanded, our coverage
has followed. When our company started, nanotechnology
as a defined field was brand new, wireless communication
was almost entirely limited to conventional broadcasting
services and walkie-talkies, Internet harmonisation had
barely begun (the first meeting of the Internet Engineering
Task Force was in 1986), cross-border harmonisation of
standards for services had not begun at all, and renewable
energies were regarded with scepticism. Today, all those
fields are bubbling with activity and programmes for harmonisation.
- Strategy: we work increasingly
on broader, strategic issues for organisations seeking practical,
operational responses to the developments on which we report.
For example, what concrete opportunities emerge for which
players from the ambitious plans for growth in renewable
energies, and are new ventures, structures, or partnerships
needed? How can a developing country attract new investment
in that field? How should companies with major global sourcing
operations obtain factual information on issues covered
in Corporate Social Responsibility programmes,
and who can provide that information to them? In all of
those fields, significant harmonisation programmes are under
way which offer opportunities for cross-border efficiencies
and development. We help our clients identify and exploit
those.
Our clients have so far come
from around 30 countries, and from both government and the
private sector. The founder of the company, for example,
has for many years and on many projects acted as an independent
advisor to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development) on the role of harmonisation of this kind
in trade liberalisation, and we have worked for a number of
national governments. We have worked for major multinational
manufacturing and certification organisations, as well as
much smaller companies.
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