Please be advised that Taiwan’s Health Authorities have put into practice new Regulations for wooden packing of consignments entering the country.

RESOLUTION

Cargoes arriving in Taiwan after January 1st, 2009 has to comply with the requirements for wood packaging under ISPM 15.

1.Wooden packaging materials, such as wooden pallets, crating boxes, cable drums, wooden load boards, spacers, pallets collars and skids, made of sawed coniferous or not coniferous wood, which thickness is higher than 5 mm, used for the transport of any import consigment, or in-transit within the national territory, should be manufactured with bark free wood previously subjected to one of the following phytosanitary treatments in the origin place of the woods or in the origin place of the merchandises :

1.1 Heat-treatment, HT: to achieve a minimum wood core temperature of 56 ºC for a minimum of 30 minutes. Such treatments may employ Kiln-Drying (KD), Chemical Pressure Impregnation, or other treatments that achieve this specification through the use of steam, hot water , or dry heat.

1.2 Fumigation with methyl bromide (MB): The minimum standard for the fumigation treatment with methyl bromide is the following:

Temperature Dose Minimum registers of concentration (g/m3 )
during
(g/m3 ) 30 min. 2 h 4 h 16 h
21°C or higher 48 36 24 17 14
16°C or higher 56 52 28 20 17
11°C or higher 64 48 32 22 19
The minimum temperature should not be inferior to 10°C and 16 hours of minimum
exposure time


2.Qualified treatment in all wooden packaging entering the country should be marked showing the details of the processing agent .
Marking for approved measures:

XX - 000
YY

The Mark should at minimum include the :

- IPPC Symbol (as reproduced above)

- XX: ISO two letters country code

- 000: the unique registration number assigned for the company that manufactured or treated the wood used for wooden packaging.

- YY: IPPC abbreviation disclosing the type of treatment (i.e. HT for “Heat Treatment” or MB for “Methyl Bromide”)

- The Mark should be legible, permanent and not transferable, colored in black, blue or dark brown.

- This mark should be stamped at least in two of the external visible sides of each individual unit of imported packaging.

3.If any wooden packaging does not exhibits the requested mark, or if in any piece of packaging it is detected the presence of living insects, signals of presence of living insects or bark, the inspectors of the Health Office will issue an order of elimination or Quarantine Treatment (treatment that will be applied to the whole packaging of the consignment).

4.The present resolution does not include manufactured wood packaging wholly made of wood-based products such as plywood, particle board, oriented strand board, or venner that have been created using glue, heat and pressure or a combination.

5.The inspectors of the Health Office will have the authority of checking any means of transport, the import wooden packaging, at entering ports or destination areas, with the object of verifying the fulfilment of the present Resolution, having also the authority to stop import cargoes and packaging and to implement the necessary bio-security steps to be taken.

6.The wooden packaging used in the import of merchandise of vegetal origin, must present a Phytosanitary Certificate, and should be bark free, and without damages produced by insects and plagues.