Import dangerous chemicals customs clearance Tips

The concept of imported dangerous chemicals is easily confused

         1. What are dangerous goods?

        According to the dangerous goods classification and commodity code (GB 6944-2012) in this paper, with explosive, flammable, toxic, infection, corrosive, radioactive and other hazardous properties, in the transport, storage, production, management, use and disposal, easy to cause life or personal injury, property damage or pollution of the environment and need special protection of material and goods.

        There are 3523 items in the Name List of Dangerous Goods (GB 12268-2012) for 9 categories of hazards.

        2. What are hazardous chemicals?

        According to Article 3 of the Regulations on the Safety Administration of Hazardous Chemicals (Order No. 591 of The State Council), hazardous chemicals referred to in these Regulations refer to highly toxic chemicals and other chemicals with toxic, corrosive, explosive, combustion and combustion-supporting properties that are harmful to human body, facilities and the environment.

        Not applicable: safety management of civil explosives, fireworks, radioactive materials, nuclear energy materials and dangerous chemicals used in national defense research and production. Generally speaking, the products listed in the Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals are hazardous chemicals. The Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals (2015 edition) contains 2,828 entries.

         3. What is the packaging of dangerous goods

        It refers to the packaging container containing dangerous goods, usually including the capacity of 450 liters, net weight of no more than 400 kg packaging containers, medium bulk containers, large containers (large packaging), etc. It also includes pressure vessels, spray tanks and small gas containers, portable tanks and multiple gas containers.

        TIPS：

        Dangerous goods and dangerous chemicals are not the same concept, dangerous goods are not necessarily dangerous chemicals, such as car airbags, lithium batteries and so on.

The scope of hazardous chemicals subject to inspection for import

        According to the Announcement on Issues Concerning the Inspection and Supervision of Import and Export Hazardous Chemicals and Their Packaging (Announcement No. 129, 2020 of the General Administration of Customs), the Customs shall conduct inspection on import and export hazardous chemicals listed in the latest edition of the Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals (hereinafter referred to as the Catalogue).

        TIPS：

        It is suggested that domestic consignees, when importing dangerous chemicals, make clear whether the import port is a place with the relevant qualification of such dangerous chemicals.

Regulation on the basis of

        1. Law of the People’s Republic of China on Import and Export Commodity Inspection and Regulations for its Implementation.

        2. Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals.

        3. Announcement on the Inspection and Supervision of Import and Export Hazardous Chemicals and their Packaging (Announcement of the General Administration of Customs No. 129, 2020).

        4. Global Uniform Classification and Labelling System for Chemicals (GHS System).

        5. Model Regulation of the United Nations Recommendation on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG).

        6. Specification for Classification and Labeling of Hazardous Chemicals (GB3000 series standard).

        7. GB15258-2009 “Chemical Safety Label Preparation Regulations”.

        8. GB/T17519-2013 regulations on preparation of chemical safety technical specifications.

The information that the enterprise needs to submit

        When the consignee or his agent of the imported hazardous chemicals declares at customs according to the Announcement on Issues Concerning the Inspection and Supervision of Import and Export of Hazardous Chemicals and Their Packaging (Announcement of the General Administration of Customs No. 129, 2020), The items to be reported shall include dangerous category, packaging category (except bulk products), United Nations Dangerous goods No. (UN No.), United Nations dangerous goods packaging mark (except bulk products), etc. The following materials shall also be provided: (1) Declaration of Conformity of Import Hazardous Chemicals Enterprises

        (2) For the products that need to be added with inhibitors or stabilizers, the name and quantity of the actual added inhibitors or stabilizers shall be provided.

        (3) Samples of Chinese hazard announcement labels (except bulk products) and Chinese safety data sheets.

        TIPS ：

        1. Before the shipment of imported goods, the domestic consignee should ask for the safety data sheet and danger publicity label from the foreign supplier, review and translate it into Chinese version by itself, and paste or tie it on the package of goods as required.

        2. If the domestic consignee can not obtain the relevant information or can not determine whether the data compliance, can ask the supplier to provide a small number of samples, sent to the qualified laboratory for safety data sheet, risk publicity label audit.

        3. Ensure that the information in a book is true, accurate and consistent with each other, whether the format is complete and whether the content is comprehensive (safety data sheet 16 items, risk public label 6 items).

The customs inspection

        The customs of the port shall carry out the batch inspection on the imported dangerous chemicals. In the inspection process of the port, it is necessary to check whether the danger publicity label, safety data sheet and the conformance statement provided by the import enterprise meet the requirements. For the packaging of imported dangerous chemicals, it is necessary to check whether the packaging type, packaging mark, packaging category, packaging specification, weight of each piece, packaging use status and so on meet the relevant requirements, and release them after passing.

        TIPS：

        It is suggested that enterprises prepare the correct version in advance and correct it in time to improve the timeliness of customs clearance.

Initiative

        In order to improve the timeliness of dangerous chemicals customs clearance and reduce the risk of port detention, it is recommended that enterprises prepare documents in advance according to the above customs clearance tips, declare in advance, and proactively contact the customs to make an appointment for inspection before shipping hazardous chemicals to the port.

Article source：12360 Customs hotline