To help Viet Nam enterprises understand more about REACH and legal issues related to business activities of enterprises, on 21st July 2010, in Ha Noi, Viet Nam Chemicals Agency cooperated with EU – Viet Nam MUTRAP III, Ministry of Industry and Trade to organize a workshop to disseminate the Regulation on Registrations, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) of the EU. Chairmen of the workshop were Mr Nguyen Nam Hai – Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade; Mr Phung Ha, Director General of Viet Nam Chemical Agency, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Thuy – Deputy Director General of Multilateral Trade Policy Department, Director of EU – Viet Nam MUTRAP III. Participants to the workshop were leaders and representatives from provincial Departments of Industry and Trade, corporations and business associations from provinces and cities in the North.
REACH is a fairly complicated EU regulation; it has impacts on almost Viet Nam enterprises exporting to the European market. Therefore, it is essential to provide Viet Nam exporters with sufficient knowledge and experience in REACH. According to this regulation, compulsory declaration list includes all products in the industries related to consumption such as chemicals, dyeing, printing, textile, garment, footwear, toys, electronic products, home appliances, furniture, cosmetics, aromatics in candles, paint... These are major export products in Viet Nam.
Mr. Nguyen Nam Hai, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade gave the opening speech in the workshop. He stated that the overall objective of EU policies and regulations was to enhance human health protection and environment conservation in ensuring a sustainable development. However, in implementation of the regulation, positive primary benefits will comes with negative impacts and there will be challenges to not only chemicals producers but also participants in down-stream industries using chemical substances to be exported to the EU, especially SMEs in developing countries, including Viet Nam. Consequently, fully understanding of the contents and specific requirements of new EU policies and regulations is necessary for Viet Nam state agencies and enterprises to have appropriate implementation methods.
Presentations in this workshop introduced EU regulations on REACH and their impacts on enterprises exporting to EU. This is a regulation used to ensure the protection of human health and environment at a high level by applying risk evaluation methods of chemical substances without affecting the flow of goods in the EU market. Institutions, individuals involve in production, export-import, trading, using chemicals must ensure that those chemicals are not harmful for human and environment. To satisfy this requirement, exporters to the EU have to improve management system for chemical substances used in production process.
Mr Phung Ha – Director General of Viet Nam Chemicals Agency, Ministry of Industry and Trade started by delivering a introduction to the overall EU regulations on REACH and the current situation of chemicals management practices in Viet Nam. There are 4 basic components in REACH: registration (for each chemicals); evaluation (assess the toxic level of chemicals and decide appropriate management practices); authorization (chemicals need to be authorized before they can be used in production, business activities or import); restriction of chemicals (restrict the production, business activities of some chemicals or dangerous-chemicals-containing products).
Followed are presentations by representatives from business associations that detailed impacts of REACH and actions of the industry: Viet Nam Leather and Footwear Association (LEFASO), Textile Research Institute, The Viet Nam National Textile and Garment Group (VINATEX), Viet Nam Paint and Printing Ink Association (VPIA), and Viet Nam Timber and Forest Product Association (VIFORES)
In addition, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Sinh – Director of Center for Data and Chemical Incident management, Viet Nam Chemicals Agency, Ministry of Industry and Trade also introduced EU regulations on “Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronic products” (RoHS) and the application of RoHS in Viet Nam. According to RoSH, there are 6 forbidden toxic chemicals: cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), chromium (VI), Bromo compounds such as PBBs (polybrominated biphenyls), PBDEs (polybrominated biphenyls ethers) and lead (Pb). All appliances such as: laptop, mobile phone, IT equipments, audio-visual equipments, office equipments, electric and electronic products, toys, lights… are subjects governed by RoHS.
According to Environment Protection Association (EPA), electric products (TVs, laptops, peripheral equipments, phones…) account for 2% of total amount of garbage nowadays. Despite the small amount, the danger and toxic level of this type of garbage is high, which affects seriously to human health and environment. Therefore, it is necessary to construct a RoHS Center to deal with RoHS compliance in Viet Nam.
In Q&A session, participants said that the presentations provided useful information, and they could be used as the reference for later implementation. Also, achievements in the workshop helped State agencies and enterprises in better understanding the policies and improving effective EU regulation implementation capacity.
A workshop on “Disseminating EU regulations on REACH” for Southern areas will be organized in Ho Chi Minh City on 23rd July 2010.
(Source: MUTRAP)