Every year the Intentional Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) holds an annual general meeting, where all their technical committees meet.

As an international standards body, the venues for these meetings vary from country to country – last year they were in Russia, this year in Korea and next year they will be in China.

About 80% of CENELEC standards are either word-for-word copies of, or largely derived from, IEC standards, including many standards used to support EU Regulations. Many other countries also use IEC standards to support their laws, so IEC standards are fundamental to world trade.

In readiness for the October IEC meetings in Busan, AMDEA is working on standards in the following areas: electromagnetic compatibility (avoiding interference with other appliances and, perhaps more importantly, with the operation of emergency communications); product safety (and yes, that will include yet more changes to the domestic refrigeration standard); performance; and environmental impacts.