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On 16 October 2020 the Vietnam Chemical Agency (Vinachemia) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) issued Letter No. 897/HC-ATHC, dated 16 October 2020, announcing that it will continue to accept nominations to the Draft National Chemical Inventory (Draft NCI) until 15 April 2021.
This is the second round of nominations conducted in 2020, as MoIT also announced a short window calling for nominations in April.
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The nomination of chemicals to be included in the Draft NCI will be accepted until Spring 2021. The current nomination period is much longer than the first round in 2020 (six months vs. two months). Included with the announcement is the publication of the updated Draft NCI (Consolidated list of proposed chemicals of the inventory). As of October 2020, there are a total of 36,777 entries. This number is equal to what was specified in the fourth Draft NCI as per the April 2020 announcement (Letter No. 288/HC-ATHC, dated 06 April 2020), when the government only mentioned the number of substances and did not release the consolidated list.
The October 2020 Draft NCI contains the proposed chemicals and information about their corresponding regulatory obligations under Vietnam's current laws (i.e., Government Decree 113/2017/ND-CP and MoIT Circular 32/2017/TT_BCT).
To nominate the chemicals, proposals must be completed through the National Chemical Database by registered users.
The required information includes the following:
- Chemical name and CAS RN;
- Safety data sheet (SDS)
- Documented evidence of the information provided on the uses of chemicals in Vietnam (Purchase contract or invoice)
Three documents (in Vietnamese) were published together with this announcement:
- Letter No. 897/HC-ATHC dated 16 October 2020 on adding information into Draft National Chemical Inventory
- Industry guidance on request to add chemical substances into the Draft National Chemical Inventory
- The (Draft) National Chemical Inventory or “NCI,” published as of 16 October 2020
The first draft of NCI was released for public comments on 15 September 2016. Since then, four different draft versions have been published, with the number of chemicals rising from 4,937 in the first draft to 36,777 substances in the latest draft as of October 2020.
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The purpose of this action is to facilitate commercial enterprise notification of chemical substances that are currently in commerce but have not yet been included in Vietnam's (Draft) National Chemical Inventory. The country is building its final NCI as part of the mandate required by the Law on Chemicals. Once finalized, it will be used to define new and existing chemicals. Under Article 4 of the Law on Chemicals, “New chemicals” are “chemicals not yet listed in the NCI or in foreign chemical inventories recognized by Vietnamese competent state agencies.”
The industry should be alert to this update and submit additional substances not found on the current draft inventory before the deadline. Once finalized, a chemical that is not on the inventory will be considered a new chemical. New chemicals will require registration before they can be used, imported, or produced in Vietnam.
For additional information or inquiries, enterprises can request technical support from the Department of the National Chemical Database System, 14th floor, Ministry of Industry and Trade Building, 655 Pham Van Dong, Bac Tu Liem, Hanoi; Phone number: 0918953916; Email: admin@chemicaldata.gov.vn/.
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