Commercial Information Circulars

24-hour hotline : 23 922 922

e-mail address : enquiry@tid.gov.hk

Ref : EIC 230/6/14

30 April 2008

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 254/2008

European Union (EU)* : Fees and Charges Payable to the European Chemicals Agency Pursuant to REACH

Further to Commercial Information Circular No. 291/2007 of 31 July 2007, the European Commission (the Commission) has recently adopted a Regulation on the fees and charges payable to the European Chemicals Agency (the Agency) pursuant to REACH. Details are set out in the Commission Regulation (EC) No. 340/2008 (the Regulation). The Regulation can be accessed through the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:107:0006:0025:EN:PDF

DETAILS

1.  

2. The Regulation lays down the structure and amounts of the fees and charges collected by the Agency for the implementation of REACH. The fees and charges vary in accordance with the type of applications (e.g. registration, authorisation, notification, etc) and tonnage range (e.g. in the range of 1 and 10 tonnes, 10 to 100 tonnes, 100 to 1000 tonnes, etc). No fee shall be levied for the registration of a substance in a quantity of between 1 and 10 tonnes unless the submission of the registration does not contain all the information required in Annex VII to the REACH Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006. Details for the fees and charges for different applications are set out in Annexes I to VIII of the Regulation.
    

3. Reduced fees and charges shall apply to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs^#) and in the case of joint submissions. For the non-Community manufacturer, formulator of a preparation, or producer of an article who appoint an only representative in the EU to fulfil the obligations of REACH, the assessment of whether the reduction for SMEs applies shall be determined by reference to headcount, turnover and balance sheet information in connection with the transaction concerned, including relevant information from linked and partner companies.

ENQUIRIES

4. For enquiries concerning the contents of this circular, please contact the undersigned at telephone number 2398 5684.

Yours faithfully,

(Cyrus NG)

for Director-General of Trade and Industry

* The EU includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

^#  The definitions of SMEs are set out in the Commission Reccomendation 2003/361/EC, which state that:
Medium-sized enterprise – employs fewer than 250 persons, annual turnover does not exceeding EUR 50 million and/or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 43 million;
Small enterprise – employs fewer than 50 employees, and annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 10 million; and
Micro enterprise – employs fewer than 10 employees, and annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million.