DaeYoung Park
Young & Global Partners

In 2008 we raised the question, "Will the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances) Regulation influence and change the chemical regulatory system of Asia, as EU RoHS has done in China, Japan and Korea?" and forecasted that "the answer is likely yes". This article describes the current chemical regulatory systems of the EU, China, Japan and Korea and how China, Japan and Korea have been filling the regulatory gap they see between REACH and their chemical regulatory systems in 2008 and 2009. By analyzing how Asian countries are reacting to the regulatory gap between EU REACH and their chemical regulation systems, and this article discusses how businesses have to deal with this continuous trend.