The ASEAN Alliance of Health Supplementation Association (AAHSA),representative of the health supplement industry in the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the International Alliance of Dietary/Food Supplement Associations (IADSA) have jointly issued an ASEAN TMHS (Traditional Medicines and Health Supplements) scorecard. This scorecard is the first of its kind developed by an industry in the region. It provides a strategic assessment of the ongoing standards in the sector with special focus on health supplements.
“The Scorecard serves to evaluate the developments, and to identify the implementation gaps and challenges, which are faced by our industry while we endeavour to support the harmonisation process in ASEAN," said Daniel Quek, chairman of AAHSA.
The scorecard is a response to the requests of the ASEAN Heads of Government and ASEAN Economic Ministers for the industries to provide their feedback and perspectives on the ongoing integration and harmonization of their sector in ASEAN as part of the building of a single market under the ASEAN economic community by 2015.
The scorecard affirms the progress made by ASEAN in harmonizing nine out of 14 standards and technical requirements being completed since 2004 in the areas of labelling, composition, quality, safety and product placement. It also shows the TMHS is reaching the goal of building the ASEAN single market in this sector as most of the measure identified for harmonization have met the 50 percent threshold for completion with a few remaining to be completed by 2015. The scorecard indicated that ASEAN would need to work quickly to complete the remaining measures.
Created in 2006, AAHSA works with the regulatory bodies of ASEAN to achieve harmonization in health supplements across the region by 2015. IADSA was founded in 1998 and addresses the globalization of food supplement markets and increasing regulatory challenges and supports the work of AAHSA.