Ministry of Employment and Labor and Fire Agency Standardize Chemical Substance Information for Rapid and Accurate Accident Response

Completion of Standardization Work for 565 Types of Information

The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the National Fire Agency announced on the 26th that they have completed the unification of information for 565 types of chemical substances with differing GHS information among 4,091 duplicate chemical substances in the 'Chemical Substance Information Provision Systems' operated individually by the two agencies. GHS information is an international classification and labeling system for chemical substances, providing safety-related information required when storing and handling chemicals. It includes not only substance names and pictograms but also signal words and hazard statements.

Currently, the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Material Safety Data System registers 20,555 types, and the National Fire Agency's National Hazardous Materials Integrated Information System registers 7,364 types of chemical substances. There have been concerns that differences in pictograms, signal words, and hazard statements provided by the chemical substance information provision systems of each ministry for the same chemical substances have caused confusion among users.

To resolve this, the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the National Fire Agency agreed in March last year to conduct the 'GHS Information Unification' work annually and started related work on the chemical substance information provision systems of both agencies this year. In this process, chemical substance information was compared one-to-one, and the reliability of information in specialized fields according to the characteristics of each agency was reviewed, ensuring that GHS information matches 100%.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the National Fire Agency explained that this achievement enables the provision of safe and consistent information on products containing chemical substances. For the industry, it can prevent confusion during the export, import, storage, and handling of chemical substances, and the government is expected to be able to respond quickly and accurately to chemical accidents.

Choi Tae-ho, Director of Industrial Accident Prevention and Supervision Policy at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, said, "Accurate chemical substance information must be the foundation for preventing worker accidents and ensuring safety," and added, "We will continue to collaborate to enhance information reliability." He also urged, "Workplaces to utilize chemical substance information to thoroughly conduct worker education and chemical substance safety management."