China's General Administration of Customs will adopt accredited inspection management for coal imported via railway and road transport, based on pilot program results and quality safety risk assessments.

Accredited institutions must sample and prepare coal from the same mining area and variety in inspection batches of no more than 5,000 tonnes each. Inspection reports are valid only for that specific batch and expire six months from issuance.

The policy covers coal listed in the accredited import coal commodity code inventory. Importers may entrust accredited institutions to conduct inspections, with customs accepting the results in accordance with the Measures for the Administration of Accreditation of Inspection Results for Import and Export Commodities.

Inspection institutions seeking inclusion in the accredited directory must be registered and operating in the coal's country of origin, with ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO/IEC 17020 accreditation from an ILAC-MRA signatory body covering the required inspection items and methods.

Importers applying for accredited inspection results must select "inspection results require accreditation" in the declaration's "goods attributes" field, enter the "accreditation institution code/inspection report number" in the "product qualification" field, and upload the inspection report and quality safety compliance declaration.

The announcement takes effect immediately upon release of the policy on May 22, according to the GAC.