WTO Seeks Comments on the Draft of Vietnam Technical Regulation of Secondary Lithium Battery

On July 16^th, WTO issued a notification ^[1] to seek comments on the draft of Vietnam National Technical Regulation on Safety of Secondary Lithium Batteries from member states. The basic information and description of content of the draft was presented in the notification, the link to the full text ^[2] in Vietnamese was also given at the end.

According to the notification and original text, the draft regulates technical requirements for secondary lithium batteries and secondary lithium batteries used in devices. The text consists of 6 chapters, including general provisions, technical regulations, testing methods, management regulations, responsibilities of organizations and individuals etc. The applicable scope, references, interpretation of terms, labelling requirements and testing methods are specified within.

The scope of the regulation includes “Electric accumulators, including separators (HS 8507)”. Specific regulated devices and exempted devices are shown in the Table 1 and Table 2. 

Table 1. The Regulated Devices

Table 2. The Exempted Devices.

This draft technical regulation applies to organizations and individuals who manufacture, import and distribute secondary lithium batteries and relevant agencies, organizations and individuals. The proposed date of adoption is the 31^st of December 2019, but the proposed date of enforcement has not been specified. The final date for comments is 60 days after initial notification.