On March 5, 2021, Chine promulgated the national food safety standard, “GB 2763-2021 Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food”, which is due to take effect on September 3. According to MoARA, GB 2763-2021 consists of 10,092 MLRs for 564 pesticides in 376 food categories, which completed the goal of establishing 10,000 statutory pesticide MRLs by the end of 2020.

On March 30, 2021, the Korean Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) issued a guidance regarding the selection criteria and data requirements for representative biocidal products (RBP) of biocidal substances to be approved through the simplified process.

On March 20, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice to provincial agricultural bureaus concerning the name modification and registration amendment of Veratrum rhizome extract and Grapholitha molesta pheromone, which have already registered in China.

On March 21, 2021, International Organization for Standardization provisionally approved the common names of 14 novel pesticide active ingredients, of which 6 were developed by Chinese enterprises.

On March 11, 2020, China MoARA solicits opinion on the 31st and 32nd batched of testing institutes approved for pesticide registration tests.

On March 8, 2021, the South Korean Ministry of Environment issued the Announcement 2021-139, a draft amendment to the “MoE Notification 2020-117 Designation of Consumer Chemical Products Subject to Safety Verification and Safety and Label Standards”. The biocide part represents the largest changes, namely the abolishment of air-use disinfectants, the establishment of microbial contamination limits and clarification on eligible main substances and limits, as well as the mandatory efficacy test data required for products with biocidal substance claim. A new product category, lubricants will be newly designated as consumer chemical products based on the actual condition investigation and risk assessment. As a result of the respiratory toxicity data recently produced in Korea, Benzalkonium Chloride and Sodium Dichloroisocyanurate will be added to the list of universally prohibited substances in spray-type products.

On February 23, 2021, South Korea announced an amendment to the “List of internationally evaluated biocidal active substances”, a series of substances to be approved through a simplified process with exempted data requirements. Compare to the substances disclosed in September 2020, the total number of active substances increased from 115 to 130 and 24 substances have been excluded due to the absence of evaluation report issued by the US or EU authorities or voluntarily withdrawn/absence of application plan for substance approval.