On 9 Jan 2017, South Korea’s Ministry of Environment notified the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade under World Trade Organization (WTO) of a proposed revision to the Act on Registration and Evaluation of Chemical Substances (K-REACH).
According to the WTO notification (G/TBT/N/KOR/700), the draft revision is subject to a period of public consultation lasting 60 days. The revised K-REACH is proposed to be adopted by 30th of June 2017 and will enter into force one year later on 30 Jun 2018.
The proposals were detailed in MoE Public Notice No. 2016-869 on 28 Dec 2016. Major changes compared to the current K-REACH legislation have been summarized and reported by ChemLinked. Please click here to see the details.
The authority has encountered many problems in developing the latest K-REACH revision as it is a huge deviation from current practices related to annual reporting and registration of chemical substances. A public hearing was planned to be held this week to consult with experts, however it has been delayed for one week to allow policymakers to find a larger venue due to huge demand from stakeholders.
South Korea issued a notification to WTO, opening the draft revision to commentary from international interests prior to finalization. However it is highly probable that this most recent draft will be promulgated unchanged. In that case South Korea will implement a system almost identical to EU REACH. For the 510 priority existing chemicals already issued in 2015 for joint registration under K-REACH, the original deadline of 30 Jun 2018 will still apply.
