While autonomy in each emirate has helped propel the UAE to where it is today, some inherent difficulties are also entailed in this set-up. On top of this is the lack of a uniform standard, which is primarily due to a lack of a unified federal strategy.

In Abu Dhabi, land size is measured by metre while in Dubai measurement is usually done by foot. The gross floor area is also interpreted differently. So measurement, which is supposed to be universally uniform, is put under question. Even in home appliances, one can notice that there are different kinds of plugs and there are times that they are not compatible with the socket outlets. All of these boil down to one thing: standardisation.

To address this problem, the UAE has established a federal authority called the Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (Esma) in 2001 as the only reference in the UAE in terms of quality standards.

Issuing standards was initially its main task, but it later on noticed that issuing standard was not enough so it started to devise schemes to implement the standard.

Its role is crucial to the country's 2015 plan as in any competitive economy, strong technical infrastructure that ensures excellence and quality is a must.

Despite being established eight years ago, Esma only begun functioning actively four years ago. Since then, it has issued more than 5,000 standards, about 77 per cent of those come from the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the remaining from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

It has also issued 34 quality marks since 2007 and is looking at closing the number to 40 by the end of this year. Although a number of things have been achieved, a list of problems still needs to be tackled.

Akin to any developed economy is a national measurement system, which is responsible for stimulating good measurement practice and enabling fair competition. Such system does not yet exist in the UAE.

Esma has been working with this for years. But the start, not to mention the completion, of the project is still uncertain.

Esma hired Germany's PTB Consultancy to review the situation in the UAE. The roadmap for the Dh100 million to Dh200m project was finished and initially approved by its board and is now to be presented to the cabinet for approval.

"The start date of the project depends ... because that will have to go first to the strategic goals that we will have. If the government agrees with that, the project will take four to five years to develop the facilities," said Mohamed Badri, Deputy Director-General of Esma.

Esma is planning to change all the measurement systems to metres beginning next year. Currently, the UAE is using both the metric system and the English system.

Badri said the UAE will make all measurements aligned with the current international standard metric system, which is the International System of Units or SI (Systme international d'unités).

It will start to implement this scheme at all the petrol stations, which are told to comply by January next year. Badri said petrol companies have to bear "millions of dirhams" to change the system. Currently most pumping stations such as Adnoc, Enoc/Eppco and Emarat are using imperial gallon, which is equivalent to 4.5 litres.

"They have to bear a lot of cost to change the system, it's not cheap but they have agreed to that," he said. "Unification is agreed and implementation of that has already been started and hopefully by the end of this year and beginning of next year, we will have lots of pump areas changed to litres. In January 2010, they must be all changed to litres."

Once all the gauges are changed, Esma will begin to monitor them. He said there are possibilities of variations in pumping gauges but the magnitude of inconsistency is difficult to detect due to the absence of data.

"You may notice that there are differences but you will be saying – maybe it is my car but it may not – it may be the gauge," he explained.

Implementation the biggest challenge

Implementation is the biggest challenge in the UAE's standardisation programme. It is the role of Esma to issue standards but the more specifics – such as industry practices – for example needs to be determined at the local government or municipal levels.

Federal agencies, such as Esma, are also often off limits to oversee each emirate's land or real estate body because of the autonomy given to each emirate.

For example, according to Alan England, Director, Mena region at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), there may be one standard measurement but a number of "variables" make the whole measurement set-up confusing.

England said: "How did the person who provided the original area quoted in the title document measure the size of the unit? Did they measure to the inside, middle and or outside of a shared or external brick wall, all or some part of the balcony and included or excluded the air space in a unit with the upper floor set back in the entrance lobby? Unless the definition of the gross floor area (GFA) is succinctly defined, every purchaser and seller will have a different interpretation of the area, which is used to apply a rate per square foot to determine the capital value."

England said while industry professionals are aware of discrepancies, most commonly, people are not aware of the problem.

In addition to GFA, other measurements that need standardisation are net leasable area, floor area ratio and net-to-gross ratio. And without a definitive industry code of measurement, buyers can be exposed to misrepresentation and confusion – a big hurdle to the confidence, which the UAE is extensively wooing these days.

Mohamed Badri, Deputy Director-General of Esma, said usually land is measured by foot while floor is measured by metre making the whole set-up confusing. Esma is mandating the conformity to metres only.

By Karen Remo-Listana 

source: http://www.business24-7.ae/Articles/2009/8/Pages/29082009/08302009_a663d...