. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/N/JPN/142 
4 April 2005 
 (05-1355) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
  
NOTIFICATION 
 
The following notification is being circ ulated in accordance with Article 10.6. 
 
1. Member to Agreement notifying:   JAPAN
 
If applicable, name of local government involved (Articles 3.2 and 7.2):   
2. Agency responsible:   Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry 
Name and address (including telephone and fax numbers, e-mail and web-site 
addresses, if available) of  agency or authority designated to handle comments 
regarding the notification shall be  indicated if different from above:    
3. Notified under Article 2.9.2 [  X ], 2.10.1 [   ], 5.6.2 [   ], 5.7.1 [   ], other:    
4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading.
ICS numbers may be provided in addition, where applicable):   Nuclear power 
generation equipments. 
5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document:   The Amendment of 
the Technical Regulations on Nuclear Power Generation Equipments, the MITI Ordinance 
No. 62 published in 1965 (2 pages, in English) 
6. Description of content:   Following amendments are made on the MITI Ordinance under 
the Electricity Utilities Industry Law, in order to accommodate recent progress of 
technology and updates of relevant technical  regulations and standards (domestic and 
overseas). 
1)  Performance requirements for materials and structures.  Prescriptive requirements for 
 material and structure are conversed to  performance requirements. In addition, 
 technical requirements for welding are revised and included in the Ordinance.  
2)  Review of requirements in terms of c onsistency with the Safety Design Guidelines 
 by Nuclear Safety Commission and IAEA’s safety requirements. 
 Requirements for working atmosphe re, redundancy/diversity/independency, 
 testability, shut-down system, safety system, and containment are modified to  clarify definitions and criteria, from the viewpoint of consistency with the Safety 
 Design Guidelines, which are used for licensing.   
3)  Review of requirements on a basis of recent experiences and application of new 
 technology.  Additional requirements are provided for following issues, in order to 
 accommodate recent experiences:   
− High frequency thermal fatigue 
− Combustion of hydrogen decomposed from water 
− Stress corrosion cracking 
− Transportation cask of radioactive waste 
− Dry cask for on-site storage of spent fuel. G/TBT/N/JPN/142 
Page 2  
 
 7. Objective and rationale, including the nature of urgent problems where applicable: 
In order to accommodate recent technical progr ess in a timely manner, it is needed to allow 
a choice of prescriptive methods to comply with  performance requirements for material and 
structure in technical regulations.  Consistenc y and coverage of the requirements should be 
examined against the Safety Design Guidelin es by the Nuclear Safety Commission and the 
safety requirements for design of nuclear power plant by the International Atomic Energy 
Agency, NS-R-1.  A few additional requireme nts should also be provided in order to 
prevent troubles experienced in NPPs in Japan and overseas.   
8. Relevant documents:   The basic law is the Electricity Utilities Industry Law. The 
amendments will appear in “KANPO” (Offici al Government Gazette) when adopted. 
9. Proposed date of adoption:    7 June 2005 
Proposed date of entry into force:   7 December 2005  
10. Final date for comments:    31 May 2005 
11. Texts available from:  National enquiry point [  X ] or address, telephone and fax 
numbers, e-mail and web-site addresses, if available of the other body:  
Nuclear Safety Regulatory Standard Division 
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency 
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) 
1-3-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-8986 
Fax: +81 3 3580 5971 
e-mail: qqnbbf@meti.go.jp