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Speaking at ChemCon held in Seoul on 18 Jun 2019, Ms. Ji-Ho Lee from South Korea’s Ministry of Environment (MoE) introduced draft amendments of the Chemicals Control Act (CCA), which have been submitted to National Assembly on Apr. 4th 2019. The MoE will manage chemicals distributed in Korea using a universal tracking number, which will be attached on chemical products during transportation, storage and use.
According to Article 9 of CCA, manufacturers or Importers of chemicals shall submit a “Written Confirmation Detailing Chemical Products” to the KCMA prior to manufacture or import after careful self-evaluation of whether the product contains any of the following categories of regulated chemicals:
PEC substances (510 substances)
New chemical substances
Toxic substances
Substances subject to authorization
Restricted substances
Prohibited substances
Accident precaution chemicals
A written confirmation system used to verify chemicals before manufacture or importation has been implemented since 2006. However, under the current system there is a high risk that false information could be submitted or that information could be purposely omitted. According to the authority, about 44% of chemicals are manufactured or imported without submission of written confirmation. Another issue is that the requirements of the written confirmation and the import declaration of toxic chemicals overlap. Thus, the MoE proposed a new system of “declaration of chemicals verification information”. Under the new system manufacturers and importers should declare the chemical verification information before manufacture or importation. To ensure CBI is protected, foreign manufacturers can appoint a Korean representative to complete the declaration. After declaration, the MoE will provide a universal tracking No. for each individual chemical product (a chemical/mixture/preparation), using the format below:
