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China Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued on 31 Nov 2012 the Administrative Measures for the Determination of Appraisal Institutions of Transport Conditions of Goods Carried by Vessels as the guidance for provincial MSAs to evaluate the appraisal institutions. Since 1 Jul 2013, only testing and evaluation reports issued by the appraisal institutions accredited in line with the Measures can be deemed as the legal basis for the maritime safety administrations at all levels during the enforcement.
In recent years, the volume of dangerous goods transported in China has increased substantially. Among all the various means of transportation, waterway transport takes up the largest share and also presents relatively higher risks. Assessing the transport conditions of these goods is of critical importance to ensure environmental and human safety.
Formulation Background of the Measures
1) Current situation of the evaluation of transport conditions of Goods carried by vessels
In general, the existing regulations are sufficient to oversee the transport of dangerous goods with identified safe transport conditions. However, loopholes in the management system exist for the assessment of unspecific transport conditions of dangerous goods, resulting in unwanted accidents and huge loss of people’s lives and properties. Faced with the frequent occurrence of these incidents involving dangerous goods, the state supervisory departments have been making constant efforts to establish relevant measures for better and more effective surveillance.
Article 21 of the Rules on the Waterway Transport of Dangerous Goods (MOT No. 10 of 1996, hereinafter referred to as “WTDG”), published by the Ministry of Transport (MoT) on 4 Nov 1996, stipulates that for dangerous goods that are not identified by these Rules, the consignor should submit the ‘dangerous goods identification table’ issued by the MoT to the port management authority and the port supervision authority at the departure port, who will jointly be responsible for determining conditions for their loading, unloading and transport. After these conditions are approved by the MoT, they should be shipped under the corresponding category ‘not otherwise specified’ according to the Rules. The implementation of the WTDG has provided legal basis for the evaluation of transport conditions of dangerous goods. Frequent cases of goods detained by local customs for being suspected as dangerous goods have been reported, the companies are required to display the identification report and the evaluation report of safe transport conditions.
Currently the Dalian Dangerous Goods Transport Research Center of the China MSA is the sole appraisal agency approved by the MoT to carry out evaluation of transport conditions of cargoes carried by ships, which is surely unable to tackle nationwide assessment workload due to the on-going growth of freight volume of dangerous goods and time and geography restrictions. Since China has not yet introduced any unified guidelines for the determination of such kind of appraisal agencies, in real practice, the evaluation reports from the non-official ones would also be adopted by the local competent authorities. However, the quality of those reports are inconsistent, or even worse, cases of report forging occur, resulting in huge potential risk.
2) Decree 591’s provisions for the evaluation of transport conditions of goods carried by vessels
On 2 Mar 2011, Premier Wen Jiabao signed a State Council order and issued the revised Regulations on the Control over Safety of Hazardous Chemicals (State Council Decree 591), which greatly contributes to the further improvement of the safety management system in China. The Regulations not only raises new requirements for the production, storage, usage and operation of hazardous chemicals but also generates more specific requirements for the safety of transport, especially stating specific safe transport conditions when the dangerous goods are shipped.
According to the Article 53 of the Decree 591, the maritime administration should determine the safety shipping conditions of the hazardous chemicals according to their types and hazardous characteristics. Goods with uncertain safe transportation conditions must be firstly assessed by China MSA-designated appraisal agency. Only when the conditions are specified and affirmed by the maritime administration can those goods be delivered.
To sum up, it turns out quite indispensable to formulate the supporting measures on the administration over determination of appraisal institutions, to further reinforce the management over certification of evaluation agency of goods’ transporting conditions, better carry out the requirements stipulated in Decree 591 as well as standardize the evaluation of cargo shipping conditions.
Main Content of the Measures
China Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued on 31 Nov 2012 the Administrative Measures for the Determination of Appraisal Institutions of Transport Conditions of Goods Carried by Vessels as the guidance for provincial MSAs to evaluate the appraisal institutions. According to the Measures, the list of all recognized institutions and their business scopes will be released on the website of China MSA. It is worth noting that since 1 Jul 2013, only testing and evaluation reports issued by the appraisal institutions accredited in line with the Measures can be deemed acceptable.
The Measures consists of 20 articles and 7 annexes, which define the application scope of the Measures and set requirements for the market access of the appraisal institutions. Specifically, it standardizes the determination and management of the appraisal agencies.
The evaluation of transportation conditions of goods carried by vessels will include the testing of pollution hazard properties of goods and the assessment of safe and pollution-prevention transport conditions. Related institutions can either apply for the “testing institutions for the safety and pollution hazard property of goods carried by vessels” or “appraisal institutions for safe and pollution-prevention transport conditions of goods carried by vessels” or for both at the same time. These institutions need to bear the legal responsibility for the testing report and/or the assessment report issued by them.
largeFigure 1 Application Procedures of Appraisal Institutions of Transportation Conditions of Goods Carried by Vessels
Conclusion
Specific safe transportation conditions are vital to the safety of shipping goods. The Measures not only rectifies the loophole in the management system for the determination of institutions that evaluate the transportation conditions of cargo but also strengthens the supervision over the testing and evaluation work performed by those institutions from the very beginning. It is strongly recommended to choose the China MSA-approved appraisal institutions (including the testing and evaluation institutions) to get official and scientific reports to guarantee the safe shipment of goods.
The English version of this article is contributed by Echo Cao
