The concessions were won at a meeting with officials of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine last week by two international recycling organisations. The two groups are the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) which is based in Brussels, and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) based in Washington.
Now, exporters have until July 20 to get their applications postmarked or receipted by a courier to allow registration by September 1. After that date no shipments will be permitted without a registration number.
A statement from BIR and ISRI said that they had been seeking answers to questions “concerning the implementation of Notices 115-2003 and 48-2004, which currently require registration of all exporters of scrap to China by July 1.”
BIR and ISRI put forward about 30 questions on a number of key issues and was expecting further information from the Chinese authorities.
Contract
The organisations have highlighted two points of which exporters should be aware. The first is that the only persons required to be registered under this programme are “those that directly contract with companies located in China buying the scrap — thus, those who ship to China exclusively through brokers located outside China are not required to be registered under this programme”.
The second point is that the deadline for submission of registration applications has been extended to July 20, 2004. “Anyone who is required to submit an application and does not do so by July 20, 2004 will have to wait until 2005 at the earliest (and possibly later) before AQSIQ will once again accept applications.”
Challenge
While companies in the UK and the rest of the world who send material to China are facing up to the challenge of completing the paperwork involved and winning approval, there appears to little panic in the marketplace. However, the situation could change if companies find they do not measure up to the Chinese criteria.
The situation could be influenced by the paper industry in China, which will need to ensure it continues to have good supplies from Europe and the US of recovered material. However, one expert told letsrecycle.com that many Chinese mills currently have very good stocks of material and so could easily survive any disruption to supplies.
Further information
More information is available from the two organisations, although some pages are for members only: Bureau of International Recycling ;
Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries
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