Brazil's Abiquim Launches Group to 'Direct' Chemicals Policy

Draft text lacks details on risk assessment, says national chemicals association

Brazil’s national chemicals association, Abiquim, has set up an internal working group, to direct and influence the text of the country’s draft industrial chemicals policy.

In October’s Global Business Briefing, the trade body’s innovation and regulatory affairs manager, Fernando Tibau, says this is currently “quite generic”.

Details on important aspects, such as the definition of prioritisation criteria and the risk assessment methodology, are lacking, he says.

The internal working group is made up of regulatory affairs experts, from its member companies, and aims to propose “improvements to the current text, including establishing details for the risk assessment methodology”.

“Abiquim considers it extremely important to have transparency in the risk assessment process because it is the main cost generating step,” says Mr Tibau.

The public consultation on the details of the draft ended in September and the environment ministry says it is currently reviewing responses.

In an interview with Chemical Watch, at its recent US regulatory summit in Washington, DC, Leticia Reis de Carvalho, director of the environment ministry’s department of environmental quality in industry, explained the next steps in the process.

It is expected that representatives of the National Commission on Chemical Safety (Conasq) will review and consider all comments submitted during the public consultation. It will provide justifications for accepting or rejecting suggestions at the commission’s first meeting in 2017. This is likely to take place between March and April.

Conasq is made up of representatives of the federal government, the Brazilian Entity Association for Environmental Studies (Abema), industry, NGOs and universities.

The four government ministries engaged in the process – labour, environment, health and industry and commerce – will then review the final text, which will be sent to Congress for approval. Ms Reis de Carvalho did not speculate on exactly how long it will take for the policy to pass through, but said it is expected to receive “approval during this government mandate”, which ends in 2018.

She noted the countries/regions Brazil is collaborating with on implementing a chemicals regulation, in the main part Sweden’s Kemi, Europe’s Echa and the Canadian authorities. Discussions with Chinese delegations have also begun. This is to explore potential common interests between the two countries, she says.