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The Law on Chemicals (Law No. 06/2007/QH12) is Vietnam's first comprehensive act to manage chemical activities and to ensure the safe use of chemicals in the country. There are numerous supportive regulations under the Law, among which Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP is the most important one and functions as an implementation decree to the Law on Chemicals.
On Oct 9th 2017, Vietnam authorities published a chemical decree named No. 113/2017/ND-CP and replaced Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP. Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP is the finalized version of the draft regulation that Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) submitted to the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade in ChemLinked report in July.
Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP covers the requirements in the area of permission of chemicals manufacture and import, the classification and labelling of chemicals, the declaration of chemicals, the prevention and emergency action of chemical accidents, etc. The finalized version consists of 7 chapters, 40 articles and 6 annexes, slightly different to the draft submitted to WTO. The chemicals lists are also revised compared to the draft; some of them are expanded greatly. The 5 appendix chemical lists are:
List of chemicals subject to conditional manufacture or trade (819 chemicals, compared to 831 chemicals in the draft and 8 types of chemicals in Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP);
List of chemicals restricted from trading (217 chemicals, compared to 120 chemicals in the draft and 42 chemicals in Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP);
List of banned chemicals (18 types of chemicals compared to 13 types of chemicals in the draft and 12 chemicals in Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP);
List of chemicals which require elaboration of chemical prevention and response plans and maintenance of safety distances (271 chemicals and 3 health hazards, 14 physical hazards, 2 environmental hazard and 2 other hazards, compared to 278 chemicals in the draft and 57 chemicals in Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP);
List of chemicals subject to compulsory declaration (1156 chemicals, compared to 71 chemicals in the draft).
Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP will go into effect from Nov 25th 2017. Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP and Decree No. 26/2011/ND-CP will be repealed then. The current permits of enterprises for the manufacture, import and export of certain chemicals will remain valid until the expiration date. More detailed supportive implementation rules are expected to be released in the future.
The decree is currently in Vietnamese and can be downloaded here.
