Dubai: All types of pesticides will soon have to be registered with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) based on the Ministerial Decree No. 27 of 2018.
Chemical pesticides, biopesticides, organic pesticides, ready-to-use pesticides, pheromones, attractants, repellents, and additives for pesticide formulations will now need to be registered with the ministry before they can be imported, exported or circulated in the UAE.
The resolution will come into force three months after it is published in the Official Gazette.
The new decree mandates that an establishment must obtain a licence from the ministry prior to registering a pesticide. Banned pesticides cannot be registered or imported into the country.
The new resolution states that to register a chemical pesticide, an establishment needs to submit an application to the ministry along with a registration certificate, depending on whether the pesticide is registered or not in its country of origin, and a registration certificate for the pesticide from a country other than the country of origin.
For pesticides that are not registered in their country of origin, two registration certificates in English from two different countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) must be presented. In addition to that, a pesticide composition certificate, containing percentages of active and inert ingredients, issued by a public lab that is approved by the registration authority and meets the Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) requirements, must be submitted.
The new decree also mandates that in case the pesticide’s trade name differs in the registration certificates issued in both OECD countries, a second composition certificate is required.
Under the new resolution, government research centres and accredited public and private universities are permitted to import pesticides without prior registration as they are for scientific research purposes, given that they do not exceed 20 litres or kilograms and that they are labelled as for research use only and not intended for sale.
Exhibitors at local conferences can also import and display unregistered pesticides, on the conditions that they present a brief about the exhibition, its goals, date and venue, and that the exhibition organiser requests an import permit for the pesticides to be used and displayed in the exhibition, mentioning the type and quantity of the pesticides for every exhibitor.
The resolution also states that the registration certificate and the import permit issued to a facility are non-transferable, and that pesticides can only be imported from the manufacturing company in the country of origin or its branches.
The ministry has the right to take samples of pesticides to ensure conformity with the approved specifications. If they fail to meet these specifications, the ministry has the right to cancel or suspend the import permit.
