ANKARA - A Turkish state minister announced on Thursday that Turkish companies had to register to a European agency in order export chemicals to the European Union (EU) area.
Turkey`s State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said that Turkish companies should register their products to European Chemicals Agency in order to export them to EU member states within the scope of the new chemicals regulation of the union, REACH (registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
Located in Helsinki, Finland, the European Chemicals Agency manages the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction processes for chemical substances to ensure consistency across the EU.
"These companies have to make their pre-registration between June 1st and December 1st, 2008," Tuzmen told a press conference at the Foreign Trade Undersecretariat in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
Turkey exported chemicals worth 10.4 billion USD in 2007. 3.7 billion USD of the exports were made to EU area, making the union the biggest market for Turkey.
Around 2,500 Turkish companies exported more than a ton of chemicals to the EU.
REACH is a new European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use. It deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances. The new law entered into force on June 1st, 2007.
The aim of REACH is to improve the protection of human health and the environment through the better and earlier identification of the intrinsic properties of chemical substances. At the same time, innovative capability and competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry should be enhanced.
(BRC-MS)