Product requirements
What requirements must be met to ensure that products meet safety, health and environmental standards?
Product requirements refer to essential conditions that products must meet in order to enter a market.
Technical rules define specific characteristics that a product should have, for example related to:
- design,
- labelling,
- marking,
- packaging,
- functionality or performance.
There are specific rules in place to ensure that products are designed to protect human health, safety or the environment.
Product requirements may relate to:
- the product itself – for example, flammability, electrical properties or hygiene;
- the manufacturing process of the product;
- the performance of the product – for example, its energy efficiency.
In most cases, regulations define the desired objectives to be achieved or the hazards to be addressed, but it does not prescribe technical solutions.
Product requirements vary widely from country to country and from trading bloc to trading bloc. It can be costly for traders to comply with different requirements in different markets.
EU trade agreements often harmonise technical rules and regulations and establish collaboration between standard-setting, testing, certification and accreditation bodies on both sides. This allows companies to sell the same product in both markets or to reduce the modification necessary. It also enables small companies, especially micro-enterprises, to compete with larger companies and to participate in international supply chains and e-commerce.
In the EU market, the CE marking indicates that a product meets all the safety, health, and environmental protection requirements to be sold throughout the European Economic Area (EEA).
So, you need to check the product requirements for each region you export to.
Go to My Trade Assistant and run a product search to find the details for a specific product.