THE MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE
THE VIETNAM CHEMICALS AGENCY
Official Dispatch No. 1372/HC-VP dated December 08, 2017 of the Vietnam Chemicals Agency on response to queries about the Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP guiding a number of Articles of the Law on Chemicals
To: The General Department of Customs
In response to suggestions and queries about the Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP (hereinafter referred to as the “Decree No. 113”) specified in the Official Dispatch No. 7678/TCHQ-GSQL dated November 22, 2017 by the General Department of Customs, and according to the assignment by the leader of Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnam Chemicals Agency has opinions on some issues as follows:
1. Interpretation of terms used in the Decree No. 113
In addition to terms defined in Article 3 of the Decree No. 113, terms defined in Article 4 of the Law on Chemicals shall be construed as follows:
- “chemical” means an element, a compound or mixture that is exploited or made by humans from natural or artificial raw materials.
- “substance” means an element or a compound, including any impurities generated from processing and any additives necessary to preserve the stability of physical and chemical properties but excluding solvents which may be separated without changing the characters of the substance.
- “mixture” means a combination of two or more substances which do not react under normal conditions.
- “chemical-related activities” refer to the investment, manufacturing, bottling, packaging, trading, import, export, transport, storage, preservation, use, research and testing of chemicals, and treatment of discarded chemicals and chemical waste.
2. Industrial precursors (In response to the query specified in Section 1, 3.3 of the Official Dispatch No. 7678/TCHQ-GSQL)
2.1. For mixtures containing industrial precursors:
Pursuant to the Law on Drug Prevention and Control, “precursors” are chemicals essential for the preparation and production of narcotic drugs and are included in the list of precursors announced by the Government. Pursuant to the Law on Chemicals, “chemical” means an element, a compound or mixture that is exploited or made by humans from natural or artificial raw materials.
On the other hand, pursuant to Clause 1 Article 6 of Decree No. 58/2003/ND-CP, “An application for import/ export license must specify the following contents: Name and address of importer/exporter; import/export purposes; name and address of manufacturer; name, quantity and content of narcotic substance, precursor, narcotic drug or psychotropic drug to be imported/exported; vehicle and proofs of satisfaction of requirements for safe transport; time and name of the checkpoint through which imports/exports are transported". Thus, the regulation on “content” mentioned above is applied to mixtures.
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