China is seeking public views on a draft proposal of its 2002 Work Safety Law amendment. According to the notice published yesterday from the Legislative Affairs Office of China State Council, the revision was made in response to a State Council standing committee meeting held in July last year and the government hopes to receive opinions from all interested social parties before 5 July 2012. The amended draft law has expanded the control span of the legislation, which is characteristic of the addition of metallurgy, rail transportation industries and companies dealing with transport of dangerous goods, and has intensified the punishment and other supervision measures for various violations against the Work Safety Law, including illegitimate production, use, storage and transportation of dangerous goods.
In terminology, changes are made to simplify the explanation of “major hazard installations” as dangerous equipment, facilities or workplaces identified based on the national, industry standards or other national relevant policies. Yet the revised draft has kept its formal definition of “dangerous goods” as covering “inflammable, explosive and hazardous chemicals, radioactive materials and other articles that are potential to endanger personal and property safety”. This implies that the identification of major hazard installations will rely more on the development of supporting technical standards in work safety and hazard classification/identification.
The revised draft is also planning to take more stringent punishment and supervision measures against various violations in different market chains of dangerous goods. For instance, illegitimately produced, used or stored dangerous goods as well as their workplaces could face due detainment or closure executed by the competent authorities; economic fines for illegal production, operation, and storage of dangerous goods without official approval are raised from 20,000-100,000 CNY to 100,000-200,000 CNY on the part of the illegal entities.
To ensure effective implementation of the state control over safe production and the safety of associated workplaces, the revised draft requires the national authority of work safety (SAWS) to work together with relevant departments in establishing some inventories about out-of-date production process, installations or technologies that could endanger safe production.
