China : CCIC North America certification suspended for one month as of 4 May 2018 

BIR was informed this morning of an official CCIC North America notice where CCIC North America informs that they have temporarily stopped processing applications and issuing of certificates for pre-shipment inspection on scrap materials exported from USA to China, and this for a one-month period ending 4 June 2018, inclusive. The Pre-Shipment Inspection (PSI) system is also temporarily closed.

Certificates issued by CCIC North America prior to 3 May 2018 incl. can still be used for port declaration, but will be subjected to 100% inspections.

In the document, CCIC North America furthermore states: “Suspected thermosetting plastic, metal scrap containing powdery substances, special papers that are hard to identify, and anything that are suspected to be hazardous will be sent to a laboratory to complete a test analysis.”

BIR is currently checking other official Chinese Customs documents and will revert to you with further information about this situation, which is set to heavily impact the entire US scrap industry at first, but will likely put the entire market under additional stress.