Since 1st March 2007 electronic products exported to China are required to comply with Chinese RoHS regulations. A test service offered by Soldertec Global has been established to help European exporters comply with this latest legislation. Many products outside the current scope of the EU WEEE & RoHS Directive fall within the scope of the China-RoHS legislation. In fact, virtually no exporter of electronic products to China will remain unaffected.
“Measures for Administration of the Pollution Control of Electronic Information Products”, the full and official description for Chinese RoHS legislation, will initially affect the labelling of electronic products. However, if the product is listed in the key catalogue published by MII (Chinese Ministry of Information Industry), then hazardous materials will not be permitted to be present in the product above specified levels.
“These regulations will have an immense impact on the future manufacturing of all parts in the electronics supply chain as it becomes mandatory for all electronic products to be tested and confirmed to be compliant with the China-RoHS requirements,” comments Tom Perrett, Marketing Manager, Soldertec Global. “Whilst some testing in our own laboratories can help European manufacturers, it is our partnership with CCC (Chinese Compulsory Certification) approved laboratories in China which is crucial. Some testing can only be carried out by an authorised laboratory.”
The company has set up three main services to help European exporters. These are:
- 1. China-RoHS has a labelling requirement to indicate the presence (or lack of) restricted substances. Product manuals will need to include a spreadsheet listing the location of all hazardous substances, in Chinese. The company can help find these materials and produce a spreadsheet in Chinese for inclusion in a product manual.
- 2. At a date to be confirmed, the Chinese authorities will publish a catalogue which will list all electronic information products that are required to be free of all restricted substances. Testing is mandatory and is required to be carried out in an authorised Chinese laboratory. Soldertec Global can facilitate this testing through partnership agreements with approved Chinese laboratories.
- 3. Pre-certification testing is advisable before shipping to China for the mandatory testing. The company is experienced in testing for these restricted materials using an established EU-RoHS assurance test programme and can offer a pre-certification service.
EPP Europe 415
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