The Chemical Business Association (CBA) has called for the European Commission to extend the Reach pre-registration period by six weeks as the result of the unreliability of the Reach IT system.
The Reach IT process for bulk pre-registrations was six weeks late in becoming available, a factor which has significantly reduced the six-month pre-registration period available to industry.
Since then, there has been intermittent problems with the system 'timing out' registrants.
Currently, the processing time for bulk pre-registrations is taking several days with error messages taking anything up to eight hours to arrive.
Melvyn Whyte, chairman of CBA's Reach Task Force, said: 'As around 70 per cent of all pre-registrations use the bulk pre-registration process, the inability of this system to function efficiently will have a serious impact on industry.
'In the worst case, substances that are not pre-registered by 1 December 2008 will have to be removed from the market until the full Reach registration process can be completed.
'This could result in a major disruption in the operation of the chemical supply chain and impact the European economy in already uncertain times.'
