INTRODUCTION
China’s economy has experienced turbo-charged expansion ever since its ascension to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001.  With its government-directed focus (1), it soon overtook Japan to become Asia’s top exporter.  Based on WTO’s International Trade and Market Access Data (a) database, by 2010, China has emerged as the world’s number one exporter (Figure 1).  One key driving force of such economic prowess is China’s chemical industry (Figure 2) that achieved an astounding double digit annual growth rate since 2001.  In 2014, it was counted among the world’s top 5 chemicals exporters/importers (Table 1) (2).  Despite its current “slowdown” to a GDP of 6.8% for 2015 (3), China continues to be a power driver in today’s chemical world, as BASF stated in its Online Report 2015 – Outlook for the Chemical Industry, “The global growth rate of the chemical market will be largely determined by developments in China, which accounts for more than a third of worldwide production.” (4)

EXPORTING CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES TO CHINA

Legislative Evolution
EU ...