China revises the regulation on the transport of dangerous goods by air 
On January 18, 2024, the Ministry of Transport of China promulgated the revised “Regulation on the transport of dangerous goods by air”. The revised Regulation will take effect from July 1, 2024. The Regulation stipulates the restrictions, approvals, management of transportation manuals, responsibilities of shippers and carriers, transmission of transportation information, management of related training, supervision and legal responsibilities of the parties, etc. for the transportation of dangerous goods by civil aviation. Compared with the current Regulation promulgated in April 2016, the contents of the regulations have been significantly revised, and the fines for illegal activities have also been significantly increased.
Superordinate laws
The “Safe production law”, the “Terrorism prevention law” and the “Dangerous chemicals safety management ordinance” has been added as the superordinate laws to the Regulation.
Application scope
The application scope has been clarified as the follows.
Article 2
This Regulation is applicable to the domestic air carriers, airport management agencies, ground service agencies, hazardous materials training institutions, agencies engaged in civil aviation safety inspection, and other businesses and individuals engaged in activities related to the transportation of dangerous goods by civil aviation.
If a foreign air carrier or an air carrier of Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan carries out the above activities, and one of the flight’s origin, stopover or destination is within China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), it shall also be subject to this Regulation.
Responsibilities of the shippers
Responsibilities of the shippers are stipulated in the Chapter 5 as follows.
- The shipper shall correctly classify, identify, package, and label hazardous materials before transport.
- The shipper shall describe the dangerous goods situation and provide true, accurate, and complete dangerous goods transportation documents when handing over the cargo to the carrier.
- The shipper shall provide the carrier with emergency response measures for dangerous situations for the consigned dangerous goods, and, if necessary, provide relevant certification materials proving that the consigned dangerous goods meet the conditions for air transport.
- The shipper must retain a copy of relevant dangerous goods transport for at least 24 months from the date of signature of the transport document (requirements for the language of the transport document have been removed in the revised version).
Penalties
The revised Regulation significantly increased the fines for illegal activities. For example, if a shipper violates the above liability regulations, a fine of up to 50,000 yuan (approximately $6950) will be imposed. In serious cases, a fine of between 50,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan (approximately $13900) will be imposed. Correspondingly, a fine of up to 30,000 yuan (approximately $4170) will be imposed in the current Regulation if a shipper violates the above liability provisions.
For the original text of the above revised Regulation, please refer to the following URL (in Simplified Chinese).
https://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/MHGZ/202402/P020240205505121303852.pdf
