Namibia can now administer, facilitate & allocate barcodes to locally produced goods & services.
Until recently, Namibian products had to obtain barcodes from South Africa and other jurisdictions.
“As a producer, you need to know exactly where your shipment of goods is, where they have come from and their destination – this certainty is only made possible by use of GS1 barcodes. As a result, the Namibia Barcode Centre was set up to facilitate the process of having Namibia as a recognized GS1 member Organization with a unique Namibian barcode for our goods,” Trade minister, Lucia Iipumbu said on Wednesday.
“This means that producers can now obtain a Namibian barcode with its own unique number configuration”
The launch of the local GS1 office, comes after the GS1 Global Office General Assembly in Geneva gave the Namibian Barcode Center final approval to do so.
“The purpose of establishing a Namibian GS1 center is to support the development of recognised, professional, finished products and encourage local manufacturers to sell their products inside and outside the local market. This means that producers can now obtain a Namibian barcode with its own unique number configuration, which will inevitably also improve access of such products to the market as well as ensuring easier traceability and standards for our products.,” the Minister said.
GS1 is a not-for-profit organization that develops and maintains global standards for business communication, with the best known of these standards being the barcode.