Vietnam partially amends regulations for industrial explosive materials

On November 30, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam enacted “Circular No. 31/2020/TT-BCT (hereinafter referred to as this circular) amending and supplementing a number of articles of ‘Circular No. 13/2018/TT-BCT on management of industrial explosive materials and precursors used in manufacturing industrial explosive materials’”. This circular can be downloaded from the following URL.
http://cuchoachat.gov.vn/default.aspx?page=legal&do=detail&id=75

Based on this circular, Article 4 of circular 13/2018/TT-BCT on the list of explosive precursors will be amended as follows.

The list of explosive precursors includes (1) explosive precursors used in manufacturing industrial explosive materials, and (2) hazardous chemicals that include CAS numbers, HS codes, and content above the permissible value (%) specified in Annex III of circular 13/2018/TT-BCT.

Other amendments are as follows.

• The list of industrial explosive materials permitted to be manufactured, traded and used in Vietnam specified in Annex I of circular 13/2018/TT-BCT will be fully invalidated, and Annex I of this circular will be applied instead.
• The term “explosive precursors” was adopted instead of the term “precursors used in manufacturing industrial explosive materials”.
• “National Technical Regulation QCVN 02:2008/BCT on safety in the storage, transportation, use and disposal of industrial explosive materials” and “National Technical Regulation QCVN 01:2012/BCT on safety in the process of producing, testing, performing check and acceptance of industrial explosive materials” which are cited in Article 3, paragraph (3) and Annex IV of circular No. 13/2018/TT-BCT will be replaced by “National Technical Regulation QCVN 01:2019/BCT on safety in the process of producing, testing, performing check and acceptance, storage, transportation, use, disposal of industrial explosive materials and storage of explosive precursors”.

This circular will come into effect on January 15, 2021.