The Movement of Reference Materials

As the use of RMs increases and international trade in these materials becomes established, it has become clear that they can be subject to high levels of import duty and delay when clearing customs. In 1998 ISO/REMCO established Task Group 6 to investigate the problems involved in shipping reference materials (and materials that are in the process of being made into reference materials, such as proficiency testing materials) across national boimdaries. 

Most of the difficulties occur when reference materials cross national borders and, as a result of specific national or international regulations, are in some way impeded. Generally the impediments include questions involving tariff numbers and customs duty coupled with environmental and health and shipping regulations. Many times, these questions arise because reference materials are shipped in small quantities and not used directly in commerce. 

For example trace elements in milk powder are not consumed as milk, and moisture in transformer oil is not used in transformers, yet matrix reference materials based on milk are imported as food and are subject to health certification requirements and sometimes import quotas. Likewise a matrix based on oil is identified as fuel or lubricating oil and is both classified as a hazardous material and subject to mineral oil tax. These problems arise because RMs are frequently incorrectly classified by specific title of their matrix (as Reference Material of Trace Elements in Rice is classified as rice) and not as reference material which is the intended use. 

The movement of all types of goods from one country to another is restricted by a wide variety of regulations and restrictions. For substances concerned with chemical and physical analysis the main areas are  

Labelling All reference materials have to be labelled. Presently they are considered to be laboratory materials, so the label should include  

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Other regulations that have an impact on the movement of reference materials include ... 

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