On December 19th, 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced to include 238 substances [1] into the country’s Inventory of Existing Chemical Substances (IECSC), the second batch of substances after the IECSC supplementation window was reopened in June 2019 (CL news [2]).
The announcement was issued based on a public consultation (CL news [3]), which was held in November to solicit comments on the inclusion of 245 substances into IECSC. They were manufactured in or imported into China before October 15th, 2003, which fulfilled the IECSC supplementation criteria but missed the previous supplementation window.
The first batch of substances, 156 in total, were included into the IECSC earlier on May 6th this year. It was reported that applications for more than 1,500 substances were submitted during the reopened supplementation window.
IECSC supplementation is part of China’s continued efforts to reinforce its new chemical management framework. The Measures for the Environmental Management Registration of New Chemical Substances (MEE Order No. 12) [4] were released in April this year and are set to replace the MEP Order No. 7 on January 1st 2021.
