On 5 Apr 2016, China ICAMA issued the 3rd batch of pesticide Product to be approved in 2016 for public consultation until 11 April 2016.

On 14th Mar 2016, China ICAMA issued the “Draft List of Pesticide, Crop and Target Combinations for the Minor Use Pesticide Registration Program” for public consultation until 28th Mar 2016, which consists of 2627 pesticide/crop/pest combinations, covering 111 crops, 250 pesticides and 240 pests/diseases.

China’s No.1 Central Document focuses on agriculture has been issued at the end of last month. Among the document, government’s attitude towards GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) industry has turned around which has arouse heat discussions.It can be found that GMO word has been proposed for 8 times in No.1 Central Document since 2007, among which “GMO” has been proposed for 7 times and GMO similar concept has been proposed for 1 time. Being an important policy document from the China central government, this indicates the Chinese government’s attitude towards GMO. 

The 18th pesticide registration committee conference has been held on Dec. 15th of 2015 in Beijing. The conference reviewed pesticide products that applied for registration. The conference has been discussed the following topics: Review opinions on pesticides that applied for pesticide registration. Toxic reviewing principle on relief of residual test of low toxic seed treatment products. Registration advice on 2,4-D butylate product. Registration advice on aluminium phosphide products. Registration advice on dicofol products.

“Zero growth” of pesticide industry laid the basic development tone of pesticide industry in 2015.  In the year of 2015, the government has issued lots of policies to management the pesticide industry.

In general, pesticide production growth in 2015 has been slow down and decreased for the first time among the last 5 years. According to data of National Bureau of Statistic of China, the pesticide exportation amount from January to November is 138.15 million tones and decreased by 9.2% comparing to 2014. The exportation value also declined from 87.60 billion USD in 2014 to 66.70 billion USD in 2015 for the previous 11 months.

2015 is the last year of 12th Five Year Plan (FYP), lots of discussion about 13th FYP have been conducted recently. During 15th National Pesticide Communication Conference, Mr. Cao Chengyu, the vice secretary-general of the China Pesticide Industry Association shared the results of 12th FYP.

Recently, the 19th Pesticide Information Exchange Conference was held in Nanjing. Vice director of ICAMA Mr. Zhao Yonghui presented on “Pesticide registration management and company’s precautions”. Mr. Zhao interpreted assessment factors in pesticide registration, and concerns of pesticide registration, and introduced document authorization, pharmacodynamic test and risk assessment when registering pesticides. Apart from that, Mr. Zhao has also summarized practical advice for 13 pesticides to help companies avoid detours in registration, which covers some popular products in market as followed:

The development of pesticide industry of China has only gone through several decades, even though China has become one of the largest pesticide production and exportation countries, there still exits big gap comparing with developed countries. The main gap falls on the production and application of highly-toxic pesticides and large scale of old products. 33 types of highly toxic pesticides have been banned step by step since 1980s, and only 22 registered types of highly toxic can be used now.

From 1 January 2013 to 20 April 2015, China ICAMA received almost 15,000 applications for field trial, which is an essential part of obtaining pesticide registration in China, of which 10,234 of them were based on the off-patent or the sub-new active ingredients.The number the application filed by over-seas applicants was relatively small, reflecting the Chinese producers are inflating expectation on the off-patent market.