Draft list of export control of Japan in public comment

As of March 05, 2011, Japanese METI published new export control list update in its public comment web site. The revised list is in Ministerial Ordinance and the comment is by April 03, 2011.

http://search.e-gov.go.jp/servlet/Public?CLASSNAME=PCMMSTDETAIL&id=595111011

The list update is to reflect the list change of international regimes, such as Wassenaar Arrangement ("WA") December 2010 list update. For example, in electronics items (3A001) and encryption items (5A002), below are the examples of list change summary which is in line with the WA December 2010 list update.

Category 3 IC chip: Relax of technical parameter in Integrated Circuit Analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converter integrated circuits, Category 3A001.a.5.a. (Please be noted the ordinance is written in Japanese and below ECCN should be converted to Japanese numbering system in its ordinance article 6.)
3.A.1.a.5.a.2. - output rate parameter increased (from current 200 million) to greater than 300 million words per second
3.A.1.a.5.a.3. - output rate parameter increased (from 105 million) to greater than 200 million words per second
3.A.1.a.5.a.4. - output rate parameter increased (from current 10 million) to greater than 125 million words per second
3.A.1.a.5.a.5. - output rate parameter increased (from current 2.5 million) to greater than 20 million words per second

Category 5 part 2 “Information Security”:
Add new exemption provision to 5A002 encryption item (Please be noted the ordinance is written in Japanese and the exemption "J" is written as "ヨ" in its Japanese document.)
j. Equipment, having no functionality specified by 5.A.2.a.2., 5.A.2.a.4., 5.A.2.a.7., or 5.A.2.a.8., where all cryptographic capability specified by 5.A.2.a. meets any of the following:
1. It cannot be used; or
2. It can only be made useable by means of ″cryptographic activation″.

Add new restricted item’s provision as 5A002.b (Please be noted the ordinance is written in Japanese and the 5A002.b is written as Ordinance Article 8, paragraph 1, item 9-2.)
5A002.b: Systems, equipment, application specific "electronic assemblies", modules and integrated circuits, designed or modified to enable an item to achieve or exceed the controlled performance levels for functionality specified by 5A002.a that would not otherwise be enabled.

Above are just examples of changes in IT industries. There are many other changes in most of WA categories, through Category 1 to 9. Traders are encouraged to review the items where applicable. In addition, as Japanese export control list quickly reflect the WA list update, this causes some disparities with other WA list adopted countries and its list update is behind the Japan’s pace. For example, Singapore and Malaysia adopt the EU list and its update follow the EU list, which only reflect WA 2008 version currently. For global traders, even if the item has same technical parameter, the classification result may vary depending on the timing of export control list update in each country.

As the due date of public comment is on April 03, 2011, the new list implementation in Japan is likely to be sometime after couple of months later on after April 2011.