Japan Proposes to Amend New Chemicals Notification Process

Three major changes involving notifying subject, frequency and process time over Japan’s small amount New Chemical Substances Notification were proposed and discussed in the Cabinet Council meeting on 14 June 2013 and the METI Chemical Substances Management Symposium in Oct 2013.

According to the meeting summary recently announced by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Cabinet Council committee proposed to amend the Chemical Substances Control Law (CSCL) in terms of the following aspects relating to small amount New Chemical substances Notification:

1. The annual volume of the notifying new chemical to be calculated as per company but not per substance. Therefore, it could not be wrong to expect that the current threshold for small amount new chemical substances (i.e. 1 ton/year, all import/manufacture inclusive) will also be revised.

2. The notifying frequency will be increased for convenient of the enterprises. Currently, Japan conducts four notifications of the small amount new chemical substances each year starting from January/February and the process will be stopped for the given year once the 1 ton threshold is reached (ChemLinked new release 11 Nov, 2013).

3. The procedure of the small amount New Chemical substances Notification will be simplified in terms of shorter processing time and clearer classification criteria.

The Cabinet Council recognized the importance of making appropriate revision of the notification scheme while the proposal is still under discussion hence the actual changes are unlikely to happen very soon.

Despite the proposed amendment, METI also announced early this month the plan for the four notification terms of 2014: