25 July 2012

From American Chemistry Council (July 24, 2012) — The American Chemistry Council (ACC) today released the second monthly report of its Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a new leading macroeconomic indicator. The July CAB was flat after declining three consecutive months, historically a sign of slowing economic activity.

27 July 2012

According to the latest economic statistics of China’s MIIT, in the domestic household chemicals market, accumulative total industrial output showed a mild year-on-year growth by 6.75% in the first five months of 2012; accumulative total sales-output ratio at 94.6%; and the export delivery value up 2.11% from the same period last year.

12 July 2012

In a recent China MIIT¹ notice on 10 July, a list of first 20 state accredited certifying bodies and laboratories has been published for the Chinese voluntary RoHS certification campaign. REACH24H’s parent company, Centre Testing International (CTI) headquartered in Shenzhen, South China, ranks second among all the approved certifying institutes. The CTI group has been committed to product quality control throughout the supply chain since 2003, with the testing and inspection on electronics and hazardous substances one of its most competitive services in domestic China.

11 July 2012

Subsequent to near 10 years’ practice of the existing registration model for hazardous chemicals, the China State Administration of Work Safety has published today the updated edition of the “Measures for the Administration of Hazardous Chemicals Registration” (SAWS Order 53 of 2012). Hazardous chemicals importers have been incorporated into the registration obligation for the first time. The revision greatly promotes the implementation of GHS in China. Affected importers are now obliged to register the hazardous chemicals, prior to its first import in China, with local registration offices affiliated to their corresponding competent authorities of work safety.  They will also face an escalated compliance urgency on GHS hazard classification, labelling, SDS making/updating and more visible regulatory concerns like hazard identification and risk control measures.

In response to a China AQSIQ proposal pertaining to the issue of entry-exit inspection fees on toxic and dangerous goods, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Finance have lately agreed to stop from 1 August of 2012 charging double the inspection fees for imported and exported toxic and dangerous goods.

02 July 2012

29 June 2012, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has released its announcement No 36 of 2012 to launch anti-dumping investigation over the toluidine imported from EU. The Customs Import and Export tariff line of the investigated product is 29214300.

28 June 2012

On June 27 2012, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has released the Announcement No 32 of 2012 on the final ruling of the Anti-Dumping investigation over imported epichlorohydrin (HS code 29103000) from US, Korea, Japan and Russia after the expiry review, which started from June 27, 2011. China will extend the Anti-Dumping Measures (ADM) for another five year as importing of the dumped chemical will harm China’s domestic epichlorohydrin industry.

28 June 2012

21 June 2012, the Chinese State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) has issued a notice (SAWS Notice 79-2012) to reinforce the supervision and administration over domestic non-drug precursor chemicals. The No 79 notice proposed 15 instruction opinions in aspects of stricter source control, production and distribution licensing enhancement and examination, practice of responsibility management in enterprises, whole supply chain track-control system, improved precursor chemical data management and rigorous crack-down on related crimes.

Deadline for interested parties to submit comments for the inclusion of arsenic acid and other 9 SVHCs in Authorisation List is 19 September 2012

21 June, 2012

ECHA has launched a public consultation on its draft recommendation of 10 new priority SVHCs to be included in the Authorisation List. The agency is regularly recommending to the European Commission substances from the Candidate List for inclusion in the Authorisation List (Annex XIV of REACH). Based on an assessment of the available information, ECHA currently plans to recommend the following substances: