In order to sell certain foreign goods on the territory of the Republic of Belarus one needs to pass either official sanitary regulation and registration, or certification of such goods, or all of the above mentioned procedures.
Types of goods for which one should without fail obtain a conformance certificate or in relation to which declaration of conformance should be carried out, are included in the List of Products, Services, Personnel and other Objects of Conformance Evaluation That Are Subject to Mandatory Confirmation of Conformance in the Republic of Belarus adopted by the Resolution of the Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Certification of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus # 35 dated 30.06.2004.
Mandatory certification and conformance declaration are carried out by the accredited certification bodies.
Mandatory certification. There are several different schemes of carrying out mandatory certification which depend on the specificity of the foreign goods, terms of supply, and terms of delivery. The scheme of certification is determined by the accredited body on the grounds of the received application and documents on the imported foreign goods. First of all, choice of the scheme of certification depends on whether a conformance certificate is obtained for a specific consignment of goods under a contract, or the applicant requests a conformance certificate for batch production, or, in other words, wishes to carry out certification of his whole production with no relation to any agreements with his counterparts.
1. A certificate for a consignment of the goods. In this case the applicant can be only the importer – resident of the Republic of Belarus. A conformance certificate is issued on the grounds of the results of the expert examination carried out at an accredited laboratory. A certificate for a consignment of the goods is issued for the period up to 1 year. Considering that the original copy of the certificate is kept by the resident and is drawn up for a specific consignment of the goods supplied under one contract, every next Belarusian resident importer should obtain a conformance certificate for the next consignment of the goods under the established procedure. Issue of the certificate for a consignment of the goods takes 1 to 1,5 months on average.
2. A certificate for batch production (certification of production). In this case a complex expert examination and evaluation of batch production set up by a non-resident producing company are carried out. Expert examination implies compulsory visit of the producing company’s premises by the special commission. All expenses connected with expert examination and invitation of the specialists are incurred by the receiving party, i. e. the producing company. Period of validity of the certificate for batch production is 3 years. Once an importer of the specific goods has obtained a conformance certificate for batch production, he is released from the obligation to obtain certification for every consignment.
Conformance certificate for batch production with expired period of validity is deemed valid for goods produced during its period of validity, until use-by date or the date when storage time expires.
Issue of conformance certificates for batch production takes 2 to 3 months on average.
Declaration of conformance. Declaration of conformance is carried out in relation to certain types of goods listed in Section 2 of the List of Products, Services, Personnel, and Other Objects of Conformance Evaluation Which are Subject to Mandatory Conformance Confirmation in the Republic of Belarus adopted by the Resolution of the Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Certification of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus # 35 dated 30.06.2004. Specifically, subject to declaration of conformance are such goods as locks, place settings, dishes, glass containers, fodder, and others.
For purposes of declaration of conformance the producer provides on his own documents proving conformance of the produced goods with the safety and quality standards established in the producer’s country. Such documents may be test record sheets, both domestic and foreign certificates. Producer may also request respective conclusions from testing laboratories on the territory of the Republic of Belarus in order to submit them to the accredited certification body to prove the safety and quality standard of the goods.
Declaration of conformance is issued for the goods under the established procedure. Meanwhile, such a declaration is subject to mandatory registration at the certification bodies authorized by the Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Certification, depending on the sphere of their accreditation and type of the declared goods.
In case necessity of additional testing of the goods is ascertained during declaration of conformance, then such testing is carried out by an accredited testing laboratory (center) on the grounds of a concluded contract.
Sanitary registration. List of goods which are subject to state sanitary registration was adopted by the Resolution of the Ministry of Health Care of the Republic of Belarus # 44 dated October 8th, 2004 “On Adoption of the List of Chemical and Biological Substances, Materials and Goods Produced from Such Substances and Materials, Goods of Production and Technical Destination, Goods Meant for Personal (Everyday) Usage, Food Raw Material and Foodstuffs, As Well As Materials and Goods Used for Production, Packaging, Storage, Transportation, Sale, Other Methods of Alienation of Food Raw Material and Foodstuffs and Usage Thereof, Which Are Subject to State Sanitary Regulation and Registration”.
In case sanitary registration and certification of the imported foreign goods becomes necessary, state sanitary registration may precede the certification procedures.
In order to pass state sanitary registration of the foreign producer’s goods one needs to submit the following documents to the authorized accredited body:
- quality and safety certificate issued by the producing company, or certificate of origin;
- a document describing all components of the goods or providing list of materials, original components used during production of the goods, certified by the producer;
- an instruction (manual) on usage provided by the producing company;
An accredited body may request other documents confirming quality and safety of the goods as well.
On the grounds of the provided documents the accredited body issues an order to carry out laboratory testing. If the applicant provides documents proving that the laboratory testing was completed by authorized organizations at the premises of the producing company or documents with results of the completed testing, a body accredited on the territory of the Republic of Belarus may decide to reduce the extent of the laboratory research (testing). Upon completion of laboratory testing an act of sanitary expert examination should be issued, which is the ground for issue of the certification of sanitary registration for a certain type of the goods.
Sanitary evaluation may be carried both in relation to a consignment of the goods and batch production. Sanitary evaluation of batch production without fail includes visit of the production site by the specialists of the accredited laboratories at the expense of the inviting foreign company.
Period of validity of the certificate of sanitary registration for the consignment of foreign goods is one year. In case of positive sanitary evaluation of the batch production a certificate of sanitary registration is issued for the period of 3 years.
Upon expiry of the period of validity of the certificate a new certificate is issued in compliance with the whole registration procedure.
Issue of a certificate of sanitary registration for a consignment of the goods takes 1 month on average, and for batch production – from 2 to 3 months.
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