Pushing Forward - On May 31-June 2, the European Association of Chemical Distributors (FECC) will be conducting its annual congress in Barcelona. Over the years, the FECC annual congress has become recognized as a key event where the chemical distribution industry come together to discuss the most current issues within the industry. An expected 300-400 people will gather to listen to talks from key players, engage in discussion and networking under the theme "Creating Value through Differentiation." Ahead of the conference, the FECC has been active in the areas of Reach; Responsible Care; and International trade.

The FECC And Reach

With Reach entering into a crucial stage of its implementation process, FECC has been heavily involved with European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) when representing its members and the chemical distribution sector. A great success for FECC was the achievement of having the last four digits of the registration number omitted from the final safety data sheet. This protects business confidentiality as it means that distributors will be allowed to remove the last four digits that otherwise could potentially be used to identify the original supplier (or manufacturer) of the substance.After a lot of advocacy efforts, this was achieved through FECC working together with other European associations. The revised Reach Annex II where the right for a distributor and/or a downstream user to omit the four last digits is currently discussed in the council with the adoption to be expected in late spring 2010.

Recently, the European Commission formed a directors' contact group between the European Commission, ECHA and industry associations entitled "Meeting the Reach registration deadline." FECC is pleased to have been invited to take part in this group, which will work to develop an inventory of issues of concern and to outline practical actions that can be implemented before June. The group will also monitor the implementation and effect of its recommendations along with overall progress towards registration. It will also address ad-hoc issues as they occur.
To help ECHA to identify the active and non-active Substance Information Exchange Forums (SIEFs) with a registration deadline of 2010, FECC launched a first survey in 2009 where its membership was asked on the number of pre-registrations and their registration intentions for each one of the deadlines (2010, 2013 and 2018). A second survey has also been initiated together with the FECC national associations members where even more concrete data was requested.

In addition, FECC gives input to ECHA and the Commission on the revision of the guidance documents by actively participating in ECHA's partner expert groups (PEGs) and the newly established Reach Implementation Projects (RIPs) concerning Reach and nanomaterials. FECC gives input on the development and testing of the Chemical Safety Assessment and Reporting Tool (CHESAR) tool, which will be a valuable tool especially for small and medium enterprises in performing their chemical safety assessments.

Responsible Care

Last year saw many developments in Responsible Care (RC). Not only did FECC strengthen its commitment to RC through signing the ICCA Responsible Care Global Charter but FECC through its international organisation ICCTA, was instrumental for the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding between the International Council of Chemical Trade Associations (ICCTA) and the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). Last year also saw the launch of FECC's own European Responsible Care Program.

The FECC European RC Program is designed to offer a tailor-made and harmonized approach to enable distributors to apply Responsible Care in countries with no national association. In addition, national associations may also implement the European RC Program or use the FECC to manage their RC under this initiative. The program addresses pan-European companies that can apply (with authorization of a national association) RC directly with FECC. A key element of the program is the mandatory third-party verification of company's compliance with RC requirements.
"FECC and its members want to play a full role in Responsible Care and through the European Responsible Care Program, which demonstrates chemical distribution's commitment to continuous improvement to HSE standards," said Hendrik Abma, director general of the FECC.

An improved and harmonised framework for Responsible Care will ultimately lead to a general increase in RC adaptation throughout Europe. Since its launch, the program has already attracted several applications from both national associations and company members with HSH Chemie GmbH being the first company to implement the programme in Romania, Hungary and Slovenia. The Danish and Belgium national associations have decided to implement the programme in their respective countries. FECC expects that several more companies and national associations will apply in 2010.

International Trade

The FECC believes that existing trade barriers in large emerging economies are preventing European chemical companies from exploring these growing markets must be addressed. This message was also delivered to the new DG Trade working group entitled "Market Access on Chemicals." FECC was consequently invited to be a member of the European Commission working group which held its first meeting at the end of February 2010. FECC's role in the group is to represent the chemical distribution industry and advice on the non-EU market access issues. The invitation illustrates the global importance of this issue.

"For example, Russia is one of the most important third country markets for European companies and it is crucial to develop the same access to this market as exporters have to the European market. This involvement with the European Commission is an important step forward for the chemical distribution industry working towards gaining access to growing markets," Abma said.

At the moment companies investing in the Russian market are often faced with illegal customs clearances. One of the main issues affecting the chemical distribution sector exporting chemicals to Russia is the so-called "double invoicing system." Other trade barriers in other emerging economies include prohibitively high tariff barriers for chemicals, double pricing of raw materials and discriminatory standards and technical regulations governing chemicals.

Through its International Trade Committee, FECC deals with issues related to export and import of chemicals world-wide with the focus currently being on trade relations with Russia and China. Other important markets include Africa, India, Brazil and Turkey. FECC is aiming to put practices in place that will help to address the problems with unfair trade practices.

Membership Developments

FECC's membership has been steadily growing over the past five years nearly doubling since 2006. In 2009 alone, five new companies joined FECC, Telko, Stera Chemicals, Amlin, JSC Rushimset and VWR International. FECC is also pleased to announce that in 2010, already two new companies, Dutch based Barentz and Spanish based Barcelonesa, have joined bringing the FECC membership to 37 company members alongside 16 national associations and 14 associate members resulting in a strengthened network and an enhanced and complete representation.

The FECC has also seen geographical expansion and now includes Eastern and Southeastern Europe and covers all of the European Union. FECC's growing membership has also resulted in a more complete representation of the chemical distribution portfolio. In particular, this has meant a strengthened representation of the specialty and fine chemicals area leading to the recruitment of an additional staff member focusing on the life science area within chemical distribution.