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Changes

Synthetic material

Effective from 25 January 2018

Who does this notice affect?

Importers of synthetic material.

What has changed?

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is currently undertaking an Import Conditions Review (ICR) to contribute to the delivery of a key initiative in the Australian Government’s 2015 Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper.

The review of synthetic material was recently finalised.

The key changes are summarised below and the new import conditions will be published in BICON on 25 January 2018.

Import conditions have been clarified:

  1. Synthetic means any good that does not contain any ingredient of biological origin, at any stage of production i.e. no level of processing to any good of biological origin will make it synthetic.

  2. Genetic material cannot be imported under the synthetic material case. Importers are directed to refer to BICON cases for genetic material.

  3. Importers of synthetic material for use as fertilisers or for growing purposes are directed to the BICON case for fertilisers.

Evidence that goods meet the import requirements must be consignment specific.

The restriction against use as animal food has been removed.

Further information

Email: ABIABImportConditionsReview@agriculture.gov.au

Phone: 1800 900 090 (Prompt 1, then Prompt 1, and ask for the Animal Import Conditions Review section)

This Change applies to the following Cases: