China introduces whitelist of dangerous goods not banned for water transportation under Yangtze River Protection Law 
China’s Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration has introduced a whitelist of goods that are not considered dangerous goods banned for transportation under the Yangtze River Protection Law. The Yangtze River Protection Law, which came into effect in March 2021, bans in the Yangtze River basin the water transportation of highly toxic chemicals and other hazardous chemicals banned for transportation in inland rivers by national rules. The Port of Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao area is located in the main section of the Yangtze River, and transporting these chemicals into or out of the port in the area, transporting them through the area or transshipping them within the area are prohibited by this law. Due to this transportation ban, some marine transporters carrying chemical mixtures that contain banned components were denied entry to or departure from the Port of Shanghai, which seriously hindered the production activities and administration of businesses. To address this situation, the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration has implemented the above-mentioned whitelist.
In order to clarify the requirement of providing information on mixture components in the MSDS, the administration released in February guidelines on how to declare the components of hazardous mixtures transported in the Port of Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao area, and updated, more detailed guidelines in May.
According to the guidelines, if a hazardous mixture is loaded as dangerous goods in a container on a vessel that is planning to transport goods into or out of the port in the Waigaoqiao area, transport goods through the area or transship goods within the area, the shipper can submit an MSDS using China’s GHS classification in the dangerous goods declaration instead of listing all the components of the mixture or updating the MSDS it has originally submitted. In this case, the shipper must submit a written guarantee in the declaration to ensure that its goods do not fall under goods banned for transportation in inland rivers.
As part of the implementation of the transportation ban, the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration has introduced the whitelist. In the whitelist system, shippers can inquire if their goods are banned for water transportation before actually shipping them by submitting technical materials about the goods to the administration. If the administration determines that the items to be transported do not fall under goods banned for transportation after carrying out a review, these items will be added to the whitelist, which is published on the administration’s website.
The administration has so far responded to inquiries by phone and email from more than 30 chemical companies and added to the whitelist dangerous goods shipped by BASF China, Yangzi Petrochemical-BASF, Afton Chemical, Lubrizol and other firms.
The administration’s announcement of the whitelist (in Chinese) is published on the following page. Please note that the webpage may not be available in places outside China:
https://www.sh.msa.gov.cn/hsyw/86199.jhtml
The administration’s WeChat post below (in Chinese) explains the registration application procedure and other things about the whitelist:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3hOAwCLCqiUtugzOKho85g
