The Chemical Law in Vietnam

In Vietnam, the main chemical law is the Chemical Law issued in Nov 2007. It is supported by various decree and ministerial circular such as:

• Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP Specifying and providing guidelines for implementation of certain articles of the law on chemicals

• Circular No. 40/2011/TT-BCT of November 14, 2011, on Chemical declaration;

• Circular no. 04/2012/TT-BCT stipulating the regulations on classification and chemical labeling;

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is leading chemical management in Vietnam. A dedicated agency Vietnam Chemicals Agency (Vinachemia) was established by the Ministry of Industry and Technology (MIT) in 2009 to overhaul the chemical management in Vietnam.

The Chemical Law provides regulations on chemical handling, safety in chemical handling, right and obligations of organizations and individuals engaged in chemical handling, and state management of chemical handling.

List of Regulated Chemicals

Decree No.113/2017/ND-CP has designated lists of chemicals subject to regulatory control under the Chemical Law and specified detailed conditions on chemical manufacturers and traders. This chemicals Decree comes into force on November 25, 2017 and replaces the Decree No. 108/2008/ND-CP issued on October 07, 2008.

For companies producing, importing or trading chemicals in Vietnam, the most important thing is to check if their chemicals are on the following regulatory lists or not.

• The list of chemicals subject to conditional production or import (1);

• The list of chemicals restricted from production or trade (2);

• The list of banned chemicals;

• The list of hazardous chemicals for which chemical incident prevention and response plans are required;

• The list of chemicals subject to compulsory declarations.

The above lists can be found and searched via CIRS's ChemRadar.

Chemicals Subject to Compulsory Declaration

Importers of chemicals on the list of chemicals subject to declaration must declare the chemicals in hard copy or electronically to the Vietnam Chemicals Agency and obtain declaration certificates first. Producers must make written declarations to provincial/municipal Industry and Trade Services before 31 Jan each year.

Information to be provided includes chemical identity, a chemical safety data sheet in Vietnamese and in original language(for imported chemicals), chemical sale and purchase invoices and other documents. A fee needs to be paid.

Chemicals produced or imported with a volume less than 100kg/y are exempt from declaration provided that they are not restricted from production/trade and not subject to the control of international conventions.

Vietnam National Chemical Inventory and New Chemical Substance Registration

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has designated Vinachemia to develop a new national chemical inventory. Any substances not listed on the inventory will be regarded as new substances and require registration before they can be used in Vietnam, imported to Vietnam or produced in Vietnam. The first version of draft chemical inventory only contains about 3,000 substances and was published in Oct 2016 for consultations. 

Since Oct 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Technology of Vietnam have been working on compiling a national existing chemical inventory for Vietnam. The draft national chemical inventory (NCI) is available for search in Vietnam's national chemical database launched in August 2018. The latest draft inventory (3rd version) includes around 31,750 chemical substances.

After the Vietnam national inventory of chemicals has been issued, chemical substances which are not listed in the inventory will be considered as new chemical substances. Those new substances need to be registered before they can be used in Vietnam or circulated on Vietnam market.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has established a dedicated agency Vietnam Chemicals Agency (Vinachemia) to overhaul the chemical management in Vietnam.

Our Service

• Consultation on Vietnam chemical regulations;

• National chemical inventory nomination;

• New substance registrations in Vietnam.