Africa-Press – Tanzania. LOCAL manufacturers have been urged to correctly use metric system on package labels and in other printed matter in order to compete effectively in the market.
The Market surveillance by Weight and Measures Agency (WMA) has discovered that some manufacturers are incorrectly labelling the SI units thus hindering them to compete appropriately in other markets.
The WMA Public Relations and Communications Manager, Ms Irene John told ‘Daily News’ that these correct ways to use SI units are set by the international standards that define the SI units, whereby they are always written in lowercase.
However, the symbols of units named after a person have been capitalised for instance ampere and A. “These symbols are not abbreviations, so periods are not required.
Additionally, space should always be included between a number and the SI unit, except for the degree symbol. Italics are usually not used with SI units,” she said.
Speaking on the just ended 5th Tanzania Industrial Products Exhibition, Ms John mentioned important points for manufacturers as SI symbols should be preceded by digits and space must separate the digits from the symbol in which the correct way is 300 mm and not 300mm.
Ms John further said packaging symbols have become an important part of marketing and product identity saying nowadays these symbols are on almost every product.
“Considering the increasing awareness of consumers, which includes a thorough knowledge of what they are buying, manufacturers should diligently convey all major and necessary information to the consumer through the use of these symbols.”
She said these symbols always are written in the singular form (even when more than one is meant), for instance, it is correct to write 1 mm, 500 mm, 36 kg but then again it is incorrect to write 500 mms, 36 kgs But, it is precise to pluralise unit names that are 25 kilograms, 250 millilitres.
According to WMA the symbol for litre may be either an uppercase L or a lowercase l both are correct.
In the US, Canada, and Australia, the uppercase is preferred since it is easily distinguished with the digit, but most other nations use the lowercase l to adhere strictly to the standard of uppercase symbols being reserved for units derived from names of people.
