Cuban experts to discuss regulations on environmentally harmful substances

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 17 (ACN) Cuban environmentalists are debating today in a workshop in Havana on technical regulations of foreign trade regarding imports of Ozone Layer Depleting Substances and the new ones that are incorporated to their control.

The headquarters of the meeting is the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment, accompanied by the Ozone Technical Office of the Center for Information Management and Energy Development.

The meeting will also be attended by the National Statistics and Information Office and the Regulatory and Environmental Safety Office (ORSA by its Spanish acronym) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA by its Spanish acronym), according to sector specialists.
One of their purposes is to evaluate the aspects related to the regulations established by the competent national authorities for the import and export of goods, they added.

According to their program, they will also deal with the import of ozone-depleting substances and the new ones that are incorporated into the control and allocation of import quotas following the entry into force of a CITMA resolution.

The latter is the Regulation for the management of hazardous chemicals for industrial use, consumption of the population and dangerous waste, and the corresponding to the ORSA, Procedure for the Implementation of the Quota System for the importation of Hydrofluorocarbon gases (HFC), for refrigeration, medicine containers and other applications.

The initiative is part of the actions programmed in the National Plan for the Elimination of HCFCs, of high global warming potential, phase II and the reduction of HFCs, with the implementation in Cuba of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.

Cuba is a signatory to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985) and the Montreal Protocol (1987), related to the control and gradual elimination of the production and consumption of industrial chemical products that are harmful to the environment.