The industry demands for objective and reliable test results are increasing rapidly. Therefore developed cotton growing countries like the USA have already built up their national cotton quality assessment systems and instrumental classification has resulted in a competitive advantage for the USA in global marketing. It is obvious that the establishment of an adequate instrumental cotton testing system based on high volume instruments for the cotton producing countries in Africa and elsewhere would facilitate the access of their cotton to diverse global markets. But up to now there is no adequate international verification of test laboratories and their results. The availability of high volume cotton testing instruments (SITC1) solely is not satisfactory. The test results have to be reliable and on an internationally agreed level. Cotton producing developing countries will be disadvantaged in their market position, if they do not manage to participate in an international system to assess the quality of test results. In order to set up an international certification system for SITC test results, the ICAO Task Force on Commercial Standardisation of Instrument Testing of Cotton (CSITC) was established and began its work in 2004. With the aim a) to evaluate cotton quality solely on instrument testing and b) to enable the laboratories to produce reliable test results and therefore with the aim of allowing cotton trade to base on reliable and comparable test results, the aspired international certification system for SITC test results includes these central aspects: