China’s MoC Seeks Comments on Administrative Measures for Liquor Circulation

Nov. 22 – China’s Ministry of Commerce (MoC) released the “Administrative Measures for Liquor Circulation (Revision – Draft for Comments) (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Draft’)” on November 14. The Draft is intended to strengthen the control and management of liquor circulation throughout the country. The collection of comments is conducted online, and will be closed on December 14, 2012.

The key changes in the Draft are shown as follows:

• Regarding the registration and filing process, after a liquor operator fills in and submits the Application for Registration and Filing of Liquor Circulation with the required supporting documents, the competent commerce department will issue the Registration License to the liquor operator, which is valid for three years. Besides the regular required documents, those who are engaged in the liquor import business also need to submit the copy of customs duties receipt with the signature and stamp of the legal representative or owner. In addition, the issued Registration License shall be hung in a prominent position at the place of business.
• The tracking system for liquor circulation has improved so that the Attached Sheet of Liquor Circulation (hereinafter referred to as the “Attached Sheet”) is required during the whole procedure of the liquor circulation. Liquor operators are not allowed to purchase liquor products from suppliers who cannot provide the Attached Sheet and other required copies of licenses, and customers can ask liquor operators to produce the Attached Sheet when making purchase decisions. Liquor operators shall keep a journal account for the Attached Sheet, which faithfully records the relevant information of all liquor products. The journal account shall be kept for at least two years. The maximum fine for breaking the provisions regarding the Attached Sheet has been doubled.
• For liquor products that are announced by the relevant administrative departments, or notified by liquor manufacturers, or self-examined to be having quality and safety problems, liquor operators shall immediately stop selling such products and recall the ones that have already been sold. The recall information shall be kept on record.
• Any liquor identification conclusion drawn or accepted by the commerce department shall only be based on the test results provided by an official authorized test institution. Test reports provided by infringed enterprises will no longer be considered as a reference.

Comments to the Draft should be submitted via any of the following means before December 14, 2012.

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