Chinese Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) carried out a series of policies to tighten the management of hazardous chemicals after the Tianjin port blast in Aug 2015. A new campaign called the “Two 100% campaign” was set as the priority task of 2018. The name of the campaign comes from the requirements that 100% of the imported hazardous chemicals are subject to on-site safety inspection and 100% of the imported hazardous chemicals are subject to sampling and lab tests. As one of the most important ports for hazardous chemical importation, Yangshan Port in Shanghai will implement the “2 100%” from April 2018.
During the conference on supervision and inspection of imported chemicals held recently, Yangshan Port brought up some rules for the implementation of the “2 100%” including:
Imported hazardous chemicals should be inspected in port and sampled at the final destination. If the final destination isn’t Shanghai, then the hazardous chemicals should be inspected in Yangshan Port first and then be transported to the destination for sampling and tests if no problems were discovered in inspection. If the final destination is Shanghai, then:
If imported hazardous chemicals are used for manufacture, then the port is responsible for the inspection and the local test facilities are responsible for the sampling and tests;
If imported hazardous chemicals are for sale, then the inspection and sampling should both be carried out in the port.
For low risk hazardous chemicals such as coatings, pesticides, inks, etc., the enterprises can apply for the one-stop inspection and sampling in the port. A list of such low risks hazardous chemicals would be released soon.
The facilities that carry out the inspection and sampling should have safety qualifications that meet the requirements set by transport authorities and administrations of work safety.
Enterprises will have a grace period of half a year. In the grace period, enterprises can use or sell the imported hazardous chemicals after they are sampled and sent to labs. If any incompliance is discovered during the test, then the use and sale of the hazardous chemicals will be halted.
Enterprises can rest assured that the authorities will consider and allow special cases. For example, if the amount of imported hazardous chemicals of an enterprise is too small to be sampled and tested, then the enterprise could file an application in advance and explain the situation. The authorities will arrange an assessment of the case and help the enterprise deal with the requirements.
Last year, a total amount of over 10,000 batches of imported hazardous chemicals were discovered incompliant in Shanghai port alone and account for 40% of the total amount across the country. This figure shows the level of the stringent inspection procedures used in Shanghai port. So ChemLinked recommends the enterprises to understand the inspection policies of the port in order to reduce compliance costs.
