China, Safety Maintenance List and Old Technical Equipment Abolition List for Hazardous Chemicals Companies (call for opinions) 
On July 2, 2020, the Ministry of Emergency Management of China announced at its website “Safety Maintenance and Abolition List for Hazardous Chemicals Companies (call for opinions)” and “Old Technical Equipment Abolition List for Hazardous Chemicals Safety Production (call for opinions)”. The deadline of the collecting opinions for the two lists is August 2. The outline of the above two lists is as follows:
Safety Maintenance and Abolition List
The full name of the list is “List of Safety Maintenance and Abolition for Hazardous Chemicals Companies (2020)”
This list is used to assess the safety production conditions of a company and then classifies it into three categories: 1. closure and withdrawal, 2. temporary production suspension for correction, or 3. time-limited correction, having respectively 5, 18 or 15 retirements and limited production activities in each category.
Production without obtaining a safety permit, production beyond the scope of safety permits, deficiencies in safety management system, deficiencies in staffing for safety management, and illegal storage of hazardous chemicals are mentioned in the list as typical cases of retirements and limited production activities.
Besides, it is shown below that individual companies have to take different actions in the three categories as classified above.
- In the case of Closure and withdrawal category: Once a company is assessed to belong to this category, its safety permit would be temporarily seized, and they have to correct its deficiencies under suspended operation of its plant. If the safe production conditions are still not met after the correction, the permit will be revoked and the factory will be closed.
- In the case of Temporary Production Suspension for Correction category:
Once a company is assessed to belong to this category, it would be ordered to correct its defects upon taking actions to stop production or prohibit themselves from using equipment concerned. If the safe production conditions are still not met after the correction, the permit will be revoked and the factory will be closed.
- In the case of Time-limited Correction category: Once a company is assessed to belong to this category, it will be ordered to correct its deficiencies upon suspending its production activities if its safe production conditions are still not met even after the deadline for correction is over.
Old Technical Equipment Abolition List
The full name of the list is “List of abolition of old-fashioned technical equipment for hazardous chemicals safety production (2020, 1st version)”
The list indicates 6 types of old technologies and 12 types of old devices, 18 types as a total; among them there are 9 types banned from using and 9 types restricted from using. For each of these listed types, scope of restriction, deadline for correction, and advices for alternative methods are also definitely noted.
The original text of the above two lists can be viewed at the following URL (Chinese: Simplified).
http://www.chemicalsafety.org.cn/detail.php?oneid=37881
