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The Chemical industry is one of the most important industrial sectors in Vietnam. It contributes 10.5% of the total industrial production value and absorbs more than 10% of the industrial labor force. Fertilizer, petrochemical, basic chemical and pharmaceutical chemical are the biggest sub-sectors. With the rapid development of chemical industry, Vietnam’s government has been looking into a more efficient way to manage chemicals. Undoubtedly, learning from more developed countries and establishing an existing chemicals inventory to carry out risk-based management on existing and new chemicals comes into consideration.
In 2007, Vietnamese national assembly approved and published the Law on Chemicals. This is the first comprehensive law to manage activities and ensure the safe use of chemicals. It raised requirements on the handling of new chemicals and ordered the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) to provide regulations on the specific implementation.
In September 2016, the Center of Data and Chemical Incident Support (CECHEDAR) under MOIT published a draft of the National Chemicals Inventory for public consultation and issued a revised version in March 2017. On Jun 21st 2017, Mr. LE Viet Thang from Vietnam Chemicals Agency introduced the development and future goals of this national inventory at ChemCon Asia 2017 in Beijing. The latest version of the draft inventory contains 4927 chemicals that are being manufactured, imported, stored and transported, etc. in Vietnam. Some of the chemicals included in the inventory came from industry feedback and the others were based on surveys conducted by MOIT. However, the inventory is still relatively small compared to those in other Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, or China. So in order to expand the inventory quickly , Mr. LE mentioned that the authorities would adopt chemicals from existing inventories in other countries. We don’t know whether the inventories would be directly merged into the Vietnamese inventory, or if authorities would soften the registration and notification requirements on those chemicals. Mr. LE expected the final version of the inventory would come out in 1 or 2 years’ time.
GHS has been fully implemented in Vietnam by Circular No. 04/2012/TT-BCT. Although the requirements of the Circular were based on the 2nd rev of UN GHS purple book, the authorities accept all newer versions. And enterprises could only specify a concentration range on the label, instead of giving the exact concentration, to allow for CBI protection.
