October 26, 2009 -- Premier Farnell announced that it has prepared and published a new guide, entitled “China RoHS - an Overview.” The company says the guide’s content covers six main areas: declaration, restriction, scope, packaging, differences from EU RoHS, and FAQs.
"Some two years late China has finally released the first draft of the so-called 'China RoHS Catalogue'," comments Gary Nevison, head of legislation, Premier Farnell. "As anticipated, the first draft only provides for a token number of products, and these are principally telephones and printers. The list of products will be updated periodically.”
According to Nevison, the China RoHS draft, published on October 9, 2009, is for consultation which ends on November 9, 2009; new restrictions will come into force ten months after adoption of the legislation, unless changes are made.
Nevison continues, “The restricted substances are the same as EU RoHS [lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE], excluding deca-BDE, as are the maximum permitted concentration levels of homogeneous material, although China RoHS specifically refers to coatings and very small components.”
He also adds, “There are ten of the EU exemptions for telephones and twelve for printers. Testing may prove a bottleneck, as all equipment exported to China, for sale in China, will require analysis and the China Compulsory Certificate (CCC) -- and the testing can only be carried out in China, via authorised Chinese labs."
Click here to view Farnell’s fully-updated "China RoHS Guide" in PDF format.
On the Web: Gary Nevison’s blog
