QCC Launches Awareness Campaign on Manaa Consumer Safety System

• #AskManaa Social Media Competition is Key Highlight of Campaign
• Participants to Win Valuable Prices from QCC

Abu Dhabi-UAE: 4 October, 2015 – Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (QCC), the entity responsible for developing quality infrastructure and raising awareness on quality standards in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, has launched a campaign on the Manaa consumer safety system.

Running in three phases from 4 October until 12 November, the awareness campaign includes a variety of promotional activities on radio, print and online media as well as at major shopping malls in Abu Dhabi Emirate.

A social media competition titled #AskManaa is a key highlight of the campaign. Open to the general public, the competition aims to promote Manaa and encourage the participants to share consumer safety messages and tips with their friends and followers on social media platforms.

To enter the competition, participants are required to post a question about consumer safety via any of QCC’s social media platforms, along with an optional selfie photograph. Manaa will answer the question through Manaa mascot and the winner, announced by random selection, will be announced following the completion of each phase. To learn more about consume safety, please visit Manaa website at www.manaa.ae.

Mohammed Helal Al Balooshi, Marketing & Communications Acting Director at Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (QCC), said: “Consumer Protection is one of the top priorities for QCC as part of its mandate to create safer markets and sound quality infrastructure in the emirate of Abu Dhabi through promoting safety standards and ensuring greater public participation in our initiatives. Increased awareness is imperative to protect the society from the harmful impact of faulty and dangerous products. This campaign will educate the people of Abu Dhabi on how they can help prevent such products from being traded in the local markets by using the Manaa product recall and incident reporting system.”

QCC launched the Manaa system in 2013 as part of its ongoing efforts to enable customers to report consumer products that pose a significant threat to public health or draw attention to injuries resulting from the use of such products. Manaa aims to engage consumers in creating a safer marketplace in Abu Dhabi through promoting a culture of quality in the emirate’s trade and economy landscape.

Manaa is a first-of-its-kind interactive product recall and incident reporting system that allows consumers to view and identify products that have been withdrawn from the market for non-compliance to the UAE’s safety standards. The web-based system features images of the recalled products such as toys and electrical appliances, as well as model numbers and reasons for withdrawal. For added convenience of customers, the portal can be accessed on smart devices through downloading the app from the Apple and Samsung application stores.

The Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council was established in 2009 to raise the quality of the emirate’s exports and locally traded products, while protecting the interests of consumers and supporting the UAE’s competitive economy. This is achieved through empowering regulators to establish and implement product safety, legal metrology and conformity schemes. QCC also sets guidelines and benchmarks to identify and verify that the products manufactured and traded in Abu Dhabi conform to the highest quality standards.