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:

20 June 2012

From ECHA press – In 2011, the Danish competent authorities made a restriction proposal with the aim of limiting exposure to humans from the four phthalates (PAEs) in consumer articles.

20 June 2012

By Olivia Sun, Ph.D (Chem)

Jun 6th, 2012, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has published the “2011 China Environmental Condition Bulletin”. In the “Column” of the Environmental Bulletin, data of chemical management in 2011 were released:

ECHA updates Candidate List with 13 new SVHCs; SVHC notification for these substances is due by 17 December 2012

19 June 2012

With the identification of 13 new SVHCs announced by ECHA on 18 June, the REACH Candidate List now contains 84 substances. All of them are classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction (CMR). Producers and importers of articles containing any of the 13 substances will have 6 months from the release date to notify ECHA by 17 December 2012, if both of the following conditions apply:

19 June 2012

19 June, 2012, at the request of the European Commission, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has submitted a report proposing a restriction on the placing on the market and use of 1,4-dichlorobenzene-based air fresheners and toilet blocks. These products are mainly used to deodorise public and domestic toilets.

13 June 2012

The Member State Committee (MSC)¹ of ECHA has unanimously agreed on the identification of five substances of very high concern (SVHCs) during its recent 3-day meeting ending on 8 June. The five SVHCs will be added to the Candidate List and may subsequently become subject to REACH authorisation. The Committee also finalised 41 draft dossier evaluation decisions.

Pesticide goods including in “Inventory of Dangerous Goods”(GB12268) with low toxic and packaged in limited amount can still be exempted from China’s Regulation on Road Transport of Hazardous Goods to some extent

11 June 2012

Last week, China Ministry of Transportation announced an official letter to its provincial bureau, Transportation Department of Gansu, ruled that seizure of the 77.5% dichlorvos EC from Nantong Jiangshan by Gansu local transportation administration in late April was inappropriate and the authority should release the pesticide goods soon.

8 June 2012

From ECHA’s news press – ECHA has published yesterday a Q&A document to provide details in advance on the dissemination and new confidentiality claims of such information in IUCLID 5.4, and encourages registrants to familiarise themselves with the upcoming changes.