Korea publishes the list of low risk active substances

On 24 January 2019, the Ministry of Environment (MoE) in Korea officially published the list of ‘low risk’ active substances for use in biocidal products, as required by the Consumer Chemical Products and Biocides Safety Act, the so-called ‘K-BPR’.

Companies active in Europe will be familiar with the list, as it is an exact copy of Annex I of the EU Biocidal Products Regulation (EU BPR). Similar to the simplified authorisation procedure under the EU BPR, which allows for a much less complicated and work intense authorisation across the European member states, biocidal products containing these active substances will also be able to go through a less burdensome process when applying for approval in South Korea.

The full list of low risk active substances has been published on the website of the National Law Information Center. At this point, this is only available in Korean but can be viewed by the use of the ‘+’ icon.

The K-BPR entered into force on the 1 January 2019 and draft versions of the ‘Enforcement Decree’ and ‘Enforcement Rule’, two other pieces of legislation setting out further details as required by the parent Act, were published in March 2018. Both the Enforcement Decree as well as the Enforcement Rule were finalised in December 2018 and entered into force in 2019.

The new biocides regulation brings with it several challenges to both the South Korean industry and foreign companies wishing to place their biocidal products on the South Korean market. For further details on the new legislation, how it can impact your products and on how the knoell offices in Europe and Korea can help to keep your biocidal products legally available on the market, please do not hesitate to contact us.