According to a source from the ICAMA, China has established its rules of toxicological study for microbial pesticide and the rules have been fully implemented last September, which could be considered as a major step forward in China’s safety evaluation and regulatory practice on bio-pesticide products.

On April 16, 2013, the MoA solicited opinions on 1280 MRLs of 113 ais  in food. Most of the ais have been included in the “Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food (GB2763-2012)”, which has been implemented on Mar 1 2013. However, the draft covered more crop ranges and some of the MRLs are more suited to the Chinese diet composition and plantation structure.

On April 15 2013, the MoA published a news release on its website that it has issued an administrative condemnatory recently. The ICAMA registration certificates of four pesticide companies have been revoked for manufacturing the counterfeit or substandard crop protection products.

As the largest glyphosate producers in the world, China’s most rigorous effluent standard of glyphosate producers would be abandoned because the industry remains vehemently opposed to the regulatory changes fearing the financial repercussions to come in the wake.

The Swiss agrochemical giant Syengenta recently announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the First intermediate People's Court of Shanghai.

On 5 Feb 2013, China General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) publish the Announcement 23 of 2013 to revise the “Implementing Rules of Manufacturing License on Pesticide”, which will be of major significance for the Chinese agrochemical manufacturers.

On 26 February 2013, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authorities (APVMA) released the preliminary review report on the fenamiphos, which proposed ban on the insecticide/nematocide. The APVMA is inviting further submission from interested person on the findings until 31 May 2013.

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) New Zealand will hold public hearings on 4 Mar in Wellington and 7 Mar in Auckland for a group reassessment of organophosphate and carbamate (OPC) based insecticides used for plant protection purposes. The Chief Executive of the EPA New Zealand has released the notification of application and consultation report of the reassessment in early November last year, and the public submission period has just ended recently.

On 24 Jan 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture published the Announcement No. 1891 to grant testing qualification for pesticide registration. The 17 testing facilities are allowed to conduct full-component analysis for pesticide technical materials in the next three years. Of the 17 facilities, 10 of them are Chinese GLP qualified and therefore  entitled as “GLP-Compliant” institutions. (See table 1).

On 28 Dec 2012, China published the “Chinese Inventory of Management of Imported and Exported Pesticide (2013)”, which has come into force since 1 Jan 2013.