The SCOPSR (State Commission for Public Sector Reform) office has recently approved the establishment of a new authority called “Pesticide Management Agency”. The new authority will operate under MoA’s Department of Plantation Management and take comprehensive charge of industrial planning, administrative approval, supervision and sanctions in the pesticide sector.

On 30 Sep 2017, China MoA released 10 draft documents on pesticide residue monitoring and will solicit public opinion until 31 Oct 2017.

On 20 Sep 2017, China ICAMA released 9 draft testing guidelines on pesticide environmental impact study and will solicit public opinion until 23 Oct 2017.

On 18 Aug 2017, China MoA released the meeting minutes of the 21st session of the 8th National Expert Committee of Pesticide Registration. The session was held in Beijing on 31 Jul during which 27 new active ingredients were reviewed, of which 9 were herbicides, 8 insecticides, 5 fungicides, 4 plant growth regulators (PGRs) and 1 insect pheromone.

On 19 Sep 2017, China ICAMA released 7 application forms for pesticide administration approval: production license, marketing license and record filing of Registration experimentation.

On 31 Aug 2017, China MoA issued Announcement 2570 of 2017, releasing two supporting rules for the management of pesticide testing facility: “Rules for the Accreditation on Testing Facility for Pesticide Registration” and “Good Laboratory Practice for the Experimentation of Pesticide Registration”.

  Annually, plant nematodes account for 12% of crop losses globally, amounting to some 100 billion USD in losses. It is forecasted that the global nematicide market will reach a value of 1.35 billion USD by the end of 2020 and significant growth will happen in the Asia Pacific and South America region. Currently, the value of the Chinese nematicide market is 500 million CNY, representing only 1% of the total pesticide market. With the increasing occurrence of nematode crop infestations in China, the nematicide market is expected to undergo significant growth.

On 4 Aug 2017, the General Office of MoA releases the new format of 5 pesticide licenses: the pesticide registration certificate, the certificate of testing institutions for pesticide registration, experimentation permit for new pesticide registration, the pesticide production license and the pesticide marketing license, which will be utilized for the 3-element approval system under new pesticide regulation.

On 31 Jul 2017, China MEP released the draft of “Technical Specification of Application and Issuance of Pesticide Pollutant Permit” for consultation until 30 Aug 2017. The draft specifies the information requirement, determination method of emission limits, computation of actual emission, criterion to assess environmental violation, as well as the technical requirements on self-inspection, ledger of environmental management and performance reporting of pollutant permit for pesticide (intermediate) production.