Brussels, 1 July 2010 – The Seconded European Standardization Expert in India (SESEI) officially assumed his role to support the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) and promote European Standards in India as well as to provide feedback on Indian standardization.

Recognizing the importance of India as a major player in the global economy, the three European Standards Organisations (ESOs), CEN (the European Committee for Standardization), CENELEC (the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) and ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute), together with the European Commission and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), have created the post for the Seconded European Standardization Expert in India, thus supporting the EU-India economic relationship. The task of the SESEI is to represent the ESOs in India, promote the model of industry-driven standardization, develop contacts with stakeholders, increase visibility of European standardization, as well as to improve European stakeholders’ knowledge and understanding of Indian standardization.

The SESEI project is under the management of CEN and co-financed by the ESOs, the European Commission and EFTA. A public call for tender was launched in January for the recruitment of the expert. The selection process has now been completed with the appointment of Mr Kiritkumar Lathia. He will be based at the European Business and Technology Centre in New Delhi.

During the first SESEI Committee Meeting, held on 29 June 2010 at the premises of CEN and CENELEC, Mr Lathia said that he was looking forward to contributing to the success of the EU-India economic relationship by utilising his management and strategic standards knowledge at European and world-wide level in representing the three European Standards Organisations in India.

Mr Lathia has broad experience in the field of standardization, having been a member of the ETSI Board and Finance Committee from 1997 to 2008, where he participated in the establishment of the global 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) whose task is to develop specifications for advanced mobile communications systems worldwide.

Mr Lathia is an Overseas Citizen of India and speaks several languages, including English, Italian, Gujarat and Hindi.

The implementation of the SESEI role follows the successful model of the Seconded European Standardization Expert in China (SESEC), who has been performing his role since 2006.

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Media Contacts:

CEN and CENELEC Elisabeth Brodthagen Unit Manager – Communication Tel. +32 2 519 68 90 E-mail: ebrodthagen@cencenelec.eu

ETSI Paul Reid Communications and Events Tel. +33 4 92 94 42 19 E-mail: Paul.Reid@etsi.org