Every Information and Communication Technology (ICT) product that will enter to specific market must be certified by the local authority. Commonly, this certification is called “Type Approval” certification. Type approval certification is mandatory for to both wired and wireless product.
The goal of type approval certification is to standardize the devices and to make it complied with the local regulation. If the product complies, there’s a small possibility that it will cause any interference to other ICT product. Moreover, the product is not easily interfered by others too. This means from this certification process, we can also secure the quality of the product.
The rule above is also applied when we’re about to market our ICT product in Cambodia. When selling the ICT device in Cambodia, the entity (can be importer, distributor, or local brand representative) is mandatory to obtain Cambodia Type Approval. For those who are not familiar with this, Cambodia type approval certificate is called “TRC certificate”.
TRC stands for “Telecommunication Regulator of Cambodia”, which is the main regulatory body in Cambodia that concerns on product approval. TRC was established in 2015. This is independent organization, separated from any individual (business player) or telecommunication operators in Cambodia. The main role of TRC is to bring fairness, efficiency, and transparent practices in the telecommunication sector.
To support this role, TRC continuously creates and furnishes technical regulation related to the telecommunication, as well as replace the regulation, which is no longer relevant, and make it aligned with Royal Government’s policies.
Another role of TRC is related to the supervision and monitoring of telecommunication sector in Cambodia. Most importantly, TRC also deals with compliance matter such as issuing Cambodia Type Approval Certification for any ICT product which already complies with local regulation.
Why We Care
When we’re processing type approval certification, the first thing to check is probably the approval name. We need to know the name of approval certificate that is relevant to our products. So, we can understand which regulatory body is responsible to issue the certificate. In practice, understanding relevant regulatory body will help us to decide the next step to take, or the requirements to prepare. Therefore, understanding approval name and knowing which institution that deals with this will give us beneficial insight to smoothen the approval process that we’re going to process.