China Measures on Cotton Import Inspection

Article 8 The external supplying firms to register shall submit the documents below to the AQSIQ:

(1) Application Form for the Registration;
(2) Copy of Certificate for Business Qualification;
(3) Organization chart and locale planar graph;
(4) Materials concerning quality control;
(5) Commitment of quality

All those documents shall be provided with Chinese version.

Article 9 The external supplying firms may entrust agents with their application on the strength of corresponding letter of entrustment.

Article 10 The AQSIQ shall deal with the registration applications in different ways under the following circumstances:

(1) Incomplete or incompliant materials: inform the applicant in a one-off way of the supplement or correction required on the spot or within five workdays; otherwise, the receipt of the application shall be deemed as acceptance.

(2) The application shall be accepted upon complete and compliant materials or submission of all supplements and corrections as required;

(3) Where the applicant fails to supplement and correct its application within 20 workdays from informing date, its application may be deemed as being withdrawn; where its supplement and correction are not compliant yet, its application shall be rejected by means of written notification.

Article 11 Upon its acceptance of the applications, the AQSIQ shall provide written or onsite assessment for the registration; such assessment shall be completed within three months from its acceptance date.

Article 12 As regards the compliant firms, the AQSIQ shall keep them registered and issue them the Certificate for Registered External Suppliers of Import Cotton.

Article 13 As regards the failed firms, the AQSIQ shall not register them and shall inform them of the rejection in writing.

Article 14 The Certificate for Registered External Suppliers is valid for three years.

Article 15 The rejected applicants may reapply for the registration after two months from the rejection date.

Article 16 Where a registered firm has change in its registered information, it shall timely apply to the AQSIQ for alteration of its registration by submitting its application form and alteration evidences; the AQSIQ shall decide whether to permit the alteration within 30 workdays from the receipt date.

Article 17 Where the registration certificate needs to be extended in validity, the registered firm shall apply to the AQSIQ for renewal of its certificate three months before the expiring date by submitting materials listed in Article 8 hereof; the AQSIQ shall decide whether to permit the renewal before the expiring date.

As regards failure to timely apply for the renewal, the AQSIQ shall log out the expired registration.


Chapter 3 Quality & Credit Management

Article 18 The AQSIQ conducts quality and credit management over the external suppliers of import cotton.

Local inspection-quarantine agencies shall assess the quality and credit of the external suppliers by referring to their delivery and performance compliances and shall report the assessment results to the AQSIQ.

Article 19 In light of their quality and credit, the external suppliers may be divided into three grades as follows:

(1) Grade A: conferred upon their registration completed with the AQSIQ;
(2) Grade B: degraded to the Grade-A suppliers under any of the circumstances listed by Article 20 hereof;
(3) Grade C: default for the unregistered suppliers, or degraded to Grade-B suppliers under any of the circumstances listed by Article 20 hereof