March 8, 2010 - China's Ministry of Environmental Protection announced on their Web site that the new rules on registration and reporting of new chemical substances will take effect on Oct. 15. Originally announced in September 2003, amendments to the "Regulations on the Management of New Chemical Substances" were approved on Jan. 19 and announced on Feb. 1.
The regulations will include a simplified registration process if the amount of the new chemical substances produced or imported is less than one metric ton. Substances produced or imported in higher substances are divided into four levels of increasingly strict filing requirements: 1-10 metric tons, 10-100 metric tons, 100-1,000 metric tons and more than 1,000 metric tons. Other changes in the regulations include new annual reporting requirements, a five-year period between the approval of a new chemical and its listing on the Chinese national inventory, public disclosure rules and a three-tiered, risk-based classification system.
Currently, the amended Regulations on the Management of New Chemical Substances are available only in Chinese at
www.mep.gov.cn/gkml/hbb/bl/201002/t20100201_185231.htm.