By Amy Wang Bruce Rayner EETimes Supply Network (12/01/2005 10:00 AM EST)

Shanghai, China - China is making progress toward introduction of its version of the European Union’s RoHS directive but the timeline for eliminating the use of hazardous materials will lag Europe’s.

The final draft of China RoHS, officially known as The Administration on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products, will be released in early January and is expected to be passed into law in July, 2006, according to Huang Jianzhong, the director of China RoHS at the Economic Operations Bureau of China’s Ministry of Information Industry, Beijing.

However, the all-important companion catalog that will define the electronics products covered by the law and the reporting requirements will not be available at the time the law takes effect. In fact, there is no timeframe set for when the catalog will be made available, Huang said.

When China RoHS is passed into law the only formal requirement will be for companies to include a label of the hazardous substances contained in their products. Companies will not be required to remove hazardous materials from their products at that time.

MII expected to draft the labeling standard in March and release it for industry review. How the standard is to be implemented will be specified in the final version of China RoHS and will be binding in July, Huang said.

But even the July date is not firm. “Ideally [China RoHS] will be effective July 1, but we may delay it,” Huang said.

As for the catalog, it is in preparation phase. “We have yet to set the final procedure,” Huang said. “As for which products will be in the catalog, it has not been addressed.”

The Ministry of Information Industry plans to develop a draft of the catalog and send it out for comment to other government agencies and then send it out to industry for review, he said.

Huang has been heading up work on China RoHS since early 2002 and stresses that implementation of the law must follow international standards for review and adoption. “The process needs to be transparent,” he said.

China RoHS will apply to electronics manufactured in China for sale domestically as well as goods imported into China. It does not apply to electronics made in China for export and it does not apply to military electronics.

The original timeline for China RoHS was to pass it into law January 2005 and release the catalog in January 2006. This would have given industry six months to come into compliance by July, 2006.

The new timeline is effectively 18 months behind schedule, which puts the likely enforcement date in mid-2007.