Revision of ISO 17034 for reference material producers: the Chinese mirror group of ISO/CASCO/JWG 43 discussed the committee draft
China’s national accreditation body CNAS reported on 29 September 2026 that the fourth technical seminar of the national mirror group of joint working group ISO/CASCO/JWG 43 took place in Beijing on 15 September. The group, formed by the ISO Committee on conformity assessment (CASCO) and ISO/TC 334 “Reference materials”, is revising ISO 17034, the requirements for reference material producers; the revision was proposed by China.
- According to CNAS, the ISO 17034 revision is the first Chinese project to be approved in these international committees. A CNAS representative is co-convenor of the working group on behalf of CASCO, and CNAS itself runs the national mirror group; the seminar on 15 September was the group’s first in-person meeting.
- The meeting focused on the ISO 17034 committee draft: participants built a national consensus so that Chinese comments and proposals would reach ISO on time. More than 20 experts from standardisation, certification and accreditation, environmental protection, natural resources, and food and drugs took part, as did representatives of the market regulator SAMR and the national technical committee for certification and accreditation standardisation.
- The current edition, ISO 17034:2016, specifies general requirements for the competence and consistent operation of reference material producers and covers the production of all reference materials, including certified ones. According to the ISO/TC 334 website it replaced ISO Guide 34:2009, because several accreditation bodies could not accredit to a guide at all, while in other countries ISO Guide 34 could only serve as an accreditation standard in combination with ISO/IEC 17025.
- The 2016 edition was also prepared by a joint working group of experts from ISO/CASCO and the former ISO/REMCO, which within two years turned the guide into a standard of the ISO/IEC 17000 series, aligned its structure with the other standards of that series and harmonised its content with recent ISO guides. CNAS does not say when the new edition is to be published.
Source: CNAS — ISO/CASCO/JWG43国内对口工作组第四次技术研讨会在京召开 (29.09.2026)