The official website of China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration published a set of documents on 15 April, providing guidelines for the production, wholesale, retail and traceability of e-cigarettes, reports pandaily.

According to the new rules, when applying for a production license, an e-cigarette manufacturer must have the necessary capital, technology and equipment and meet the requirements of the national e-cigarette industry policy.
Enterprises that have obtained the license for tobacco wholesale can operate within the e-cigarette industry with the approval of relevant departments. Furthermore, domestic e-cigarette retail outlets are to be categorised independently from traditional cigarette retail outlets, according to pandaily.
Specific traceability management systems and technical standards will also be introduced soon. Certain measures include the mandatory placement of QR codes on the outer packaging of e-cigarette products.
In addition, two new regulations for e-cigarettes have been recently unveiled, namely measures for the administration of e-cigarettes and the mandatory national standards for e-cigarettes, which will be implemented on 1 May, 2022 and 1 October, 2022 respectively. Before the regulation enters into force, there will be a five-month transition period, which will give the industry time to reduce its stocks and develop new products. During the transitional period, new e-cigarette production and operation enterprises, as well as new e-cigarette retail stores are not allowed to be established. All companies are also not allowed to expand production capacities.