AQSIQ may open up inspection procedures

China’s State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has issued a preliminary notice saying changes are coming to its inspection procedures for scrap materials imported into China.

Monday, 15 August 2016, the AQSIQ posted to its website (in Chinese only) a notice that it was preparing to make changes to rules that apply to its “imports of solid wastes as raw materials [scrap]” and “preshipment inspection agency designated issues.”

For several years, the Beijing-based China Certification and Inspection Group (CCIC) has been the sole approved preinspection provider of exported scrap materials bound for China.

The mid-August 2016 AQSIQ announcement, called Notice No. 79, says China’s State Council has decided to make the changes regarding designated preshipment inspection agencies that will apply to “imported solid wastes as raw materials [scrap] and imported used machinery and electronic products.”

The changes have “entered the stage of legal review,” according to Notice No. 79, and AQSIQ says it will explain the revision process “to the public as soon as possible.”

The revisions will be explained in a yet to be released AQSIQ Decree No. 119. In the meantime, shippers have been instructed to keep working with CCIC, referred to by AQSIQ only as “the original preshipment inspection agency designated to implement preshipment inspection of imports of solid waste used as raw materials.”