On May 18th, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the Administrative Measures on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Products (Draft) for public consultation, which will end on June 17th.
The final version of this regulation will replace the previous Administrative Measures on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products (also known as “China RoHS”) published in 2006. Major changes are expected to include the following:
1. Expansion of the regulation scope
The regulated product types will be expanded from electronic information products to all electrical and electronic products as indicated by the change in the regulation’s title. The regulation excludes equipment related to generating, transmitting and/or distributing electricity.
Meanwhile, new China RoHS will be applicable to all the mentioned products manufactured in or imported to China. Exemptions granted to products for export will also be cancelled.
2. Establishment of a new catalogue
In 2009, China issued a draft catalogue earmarking electronic products subject to prioritized management (see CL database). Later in 2011, another catalogue was published to include the assembled equipment, subassemblies, spare parts and materials subject to voluntary RoHS certification, as well as the excepted conditions. (See CL database)
The new draft RoHS will use a similar but larger catalogue, titled “Qualification Management Catalogue (达标管理目录)”, and will be established to include all the types of products subject to compulsory China RoHS certification.
Fig. 1 - Mark of China’s national voluntary certification of pollution control over electronic information products
3. Establishment of qualification management regime
To support the implementation of the new China RoHS regulation and roll out the qualification management regime, China Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA), with the joint effort of MIIT, will establish, promulgate and organize implementation of the conformity certification scheme. The certification scheme may be largely based on the one initiated following the navigation of the Implementation Opinions on the National Voluntary Certification of Pollution Control over Electronic Information Products (2010).
Furthermore, MIIT will cooperate with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to work out a mechanism to allow certification results as admissible evidence in the social credit system.
