Vietnam to Assist Enterprises to Comply with GHS Requirements in Asia Pacific and EU

On March 27, 2020, Vietnam MOIT issued a notice ^[1] announcing that they will offer help to chemical manufactory and trade enterprises to comply with GHS requirements in different countries in Asia-Pacific and EU.

Many countries in Asia-Pacific have already adopted GHS for hazard classification and communication about chemicals. However, countries may choose different revisions or different building blocks, resulting in different implementations of GHS in different countries. In addition, local languages of different countries also form obstacles for the export and import of chemicals. In the notice, MOIT recommends enterprises to refer to the GHS Reference Exchange and Tool (G.R.E.A.T.) Website ^[2], which is provided by the Chemical Dialogue Committee under Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), to access GHS labelling elements and other resources for different countries in their local languages.

For now, the GREAT Website offers over ten Asia-Pacific countries’ and EU's GHS labelling elements, as well as such information in original GHS Rev.4 and Rev.7. For each country, the website provides a document, including information like hazardous class and category, pictogram (symbol), signal word, hazard statement, and precautionary statement in both English and local language. It is noteworthy that the information of some countries is out of date, so we suggest that the website shall be referred to for dealing with specific cases.

At last, MOIT also recommends enterprises to communicate with the government through phone or e-mail if they need other technical support. For the foreign enterprises that plan to trade with Vietnam and are concern with the GHS implementation in Vietnam, it is a good chance to communicate with the local government as well.