AICIS Agent

 

AICIS is an Australian regulatory regime for products containing industrial chemicals, such as cosmetics, paints, detergents and soaps.  RSA is an AICIS Agent.  We assist foreign manufacturers meet their requirements under this regime by acting as an agent for a foreign manufacturer.

Who is AICIS?

AICIS is the acronym for the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme.  It was previously known as NICNAS until July 2000.   It is a corollary regulatory agency to the TGA.

AICIS regulates chemicals imported into Australia that are contained in, or release a chemical reaction in, products sold in Australia.  The most common examples are cosmetics, soaps, detergents and paints.

Businesses importing products that fall under AICIS rules, and that are intended for consumers, also need to comply with other Federal and State regulations relating to product labelling, advertising and product safety.  

AICIS keep a list of approved industrial chemicals and a list of banned or restricted chemicals.  

AICIS Registration

AICIS registers a business and not the industrial chemicals or products.  

An overseas manufacturer can register their business as the importer, or they can use an AICIS Agent in Australia to be the business that is registered with AICIS.

RSA acts as an AICIS Agent for overseas clients.  There are distinct advantages for a foreign manufacturer by using an agent in Australia, the main one being to avoid the need to obtain an ARBN to register their business in Australia.  An ARBN creates a series of additional tax and reporting requirements that foreign manufacturers may wish to avoid.

An overseas manufacturer will also need to use the services of a regulatory consultant to assist with the technical aspects of registration.  RSA can provide a regulatory consultant, or we can work with a regulatory consultant already engaged by the manufacturer.

Why use RSA as your AICIS Agent?

RSA is different to most other sponsors.   We are not primarily a technical regulatory consultant, although we offer those services too.   We are not a distributor, though we can help you find the right distributor.  We have no conflict of interest.  We are not based internationally.  We are Australians, living and mainly working in Sydney, Australia.

Above all, we are business people focussed on making sure you get accurate and impartial advice to help you make the right decisions to give your product(s) and your business the best chance of succeeding.

If you don’t know whether it is worth selling in Australia, we can help you with market analyses and market intelligence.  We help clients find distributors or, if they are selling direct, help them find contacts with potential customers.

If you want to sell in Australia the first piece of advice you will need is how best to structure your Australian enterprise to make it profitable and minimise the cost of selling in Australia.  Do you need to set up a company?  Do you need to register your (foreign) company in Australia? Or can you get by with just having an AICIS Agent in Australia?  Are your product(s) regulated by AICIS, do they fall within another Australian regulatory regime (eg TGA) or can you sell in Australia without registering your products?

We can guide you through those considerations and explain the options available to you.

You will almost certainly need a regulatory consultant to help you deal with technical queries with AICIS.  Many of our clients come to us through a regulatory consultant who has recommended us.  We work with many regulatory consultants across Australia.  If you don’t have one, we will recommend one or more consultant for you to speak to, based on your product(s) and their expertise.

You may also need to find a distributor, or you have sales channels already organised and need importing, warehousing and despatching services.  We can help you in these areas as well.

If your best option is to establish a legal presence in Australia, we can help you all the way.  We can create a company for you, which will become the AICIS Agent.  You will need an Australian as a director.  We can provide that person.  

We’ll help you with accounting, tax and company secretarial services.  More than that, we can help with strategy, local management, business development, marketing, sales, recruitment and operations assistance.  That’s where RSA stands out from others – we have been CEO’s of businesses doing all those things.  We understand how to bring it all together to make it easy for you, as a foreign manufacturer, to feel comfortable that your local operations are being overseen by experienced business executives like yourselves.

If you choose us as your AICIS Agent, we stay close to you and work with you to make sure you avoid regulatory issues with your product(s), packaging or marketing.   

We can also help you in many other ways to structure and grow your business effectively.

Next steps?

We want to talk to you about your product(s), your company, your international sales elsewhere in the world and your aspirations for the Australian market.  We ask you what contacts you already have in our markets – a distributor, for example.  Do you need more information about the local markets or are you ready to get going?  

And we tell you about us – who we are, our experience and our services.

So what does it cost you to use RSA as your AICIS Agent?  Our pricing is competitive.  We keep it simple, and fair.  We provide an informal cost estimate after we know which services you need, following by a formal proposal if you are happy to proceed.

We treat all information received as confidential but we will sign a NDA at any time.  To formalise arrangements we enter a contract with you setting out all the services contracted, pricing and general terms and conditions.