Currently the most important regulation on non-agricultural pesticides in Taiwan is the Environmental Agents Control Act (Taiwan EACA), which was updated by Presidential Order on 27 January 2006. The EACA stipulates that chemical agents or microbial preparations used for environmental sanitation and pollution control are subject to this regulation. Classification and Registration Permit Generally, environmental agents can be classified into the following three types by their product features and application range: Insecticides, miticides, rodenticides, bactericides/fungicides used for environmental sanitation, and other chemical agents used against target organisms (Sanitation Environmental Agent); Synthetic chemical agents used for preventing air, water, or soil pollution, or treat waste, which should be officially announced by Taiwan EPA(pollution control agent); Natural or artificially-modified microbe organisms or their metabolites used for preventing air, water, or soil pollution, or treat waste all of which should be officially announced by Taiwan EPA (microbial environmental agent);   Depending on the role they play in the supply chain and the supervision they are subject to, environmental agents can be also distinguished as technical grade environmental agent, general use environmental agent and special environmental agent: Technical Grade EA: raw material containing the active ingredient and utilized for manufacturing or processing general use environmental agents or special environmental agents General Use EA: manufactured or processed from the Technical Grade EA and used in a similar manner. The concentration of active ingredient(s) should conform to the limits designated by Taiwan EPA; Special Environmental Agent: manufactured or processed from the Technical Grade EA or other chemical agents designated by the central competent authority, SEA shall be used following specific safety protection measures.

China MoA has revoked 12 pesticide registration certificates from 9 domestic producers for substandard or counterfeit pesticide.

From the 13th to the 24th of October 2014, the US EPA GLP official Francisca E. Liem visited China where she engaged in a panel discussion with China ICAMA on GLP MAD issues.

In the United States, the overarching regulation on pesticide management is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act(FIFRA), which specifies the definition of a pesticide as: any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest, or use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant, as well as any nitrogen stabilizer. On day two of the Chemical Regulatory Annual Conference, Mr. Robert Kiefer from Reach24H USA introduced the regulatory system of pesticide and antimicrobial products in the US. Overview of Requirements for US Pesticide Registration Laws and Regulations All pesticides (including imported pesticide) sold or distributed in the US are required to be registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).However, if the substance falls under the category of liquid chemical sterilizing agent, nitrogen stabilizer, human drug, animal drug, animal feeds (vitamin hormone products) or is intended to aid the growth of desirable plants, it is excluded from regulation by FIFRA. In addition, pesticides are regulated by the EPA under a series of supporting regulations. The name and EPA’s function under associated regulations are summarized as follow: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) – requires all pesticides sold or distributed in the U.S. (including imported pesticides) to be registered by EPA Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) – requires EPA to set pesticide residue tolerances for all pesticides used in or on food Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA) – established safety criteria of “reasonable certainty of no harm”, and EPA must review pesticide registrations every 15 years Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2003 (PRIA) – established pesticide registration fees and defined Agency  timelines Regulations implementing the pesticide statutes a

China pesticide export volume remained flat at 892,700 tons in the first half of 2014 just a slight decrease of 1.5% compared to the same period last year. The value of pesticide exports increased by 3.8% up to 4.667 billion USD. The percentage of pesticide technical materials continued to drop in both volume and value. Volume of imports maintained double digital growth to some 40,100 tons and the value was 423 million USD, a modest growth of 2% than last year. On day two of the Chemical Regulatory Annual Conference 2014, Mr. Zhang Wenjun, Division Director of International Exchange and Service from ICAMA provided some interesting statistics on China’s pesticide exportation and importation as well as the recent updates on pesticide import/export management.

On 9 Oct 2014, the US International Trade Commission made its final decision on its anti-dumping lawsuit targeting Chinese produced and imported trichloroiso cyanuric acid(TCCA). The commission determined that Chinese TCCA was currently a subsidized imported product and that in future new duties will be imposed on imported TCCA from China.

On 8 Oct 2014, MoA’s official website published the meeting minutes of the 15th session of the 8th National Expert Committee for Pesticide Registration which announced the approval of full registration on 15 new pesticides of 9 novel active ingredients in China, which includes Syngenta’s isopyrazam, Dow’s Aminopyralid and BASF’s Intium. 

Mr. Zhang revealed that the competent authority of manufacturing management is to issue a special document for the production of pesticides for export only. With the uncertainty surrounding the current and future management of pesticide for export only it is recommended that affected companies communicate and interact with competent authorities at this crucial stage.

80% of minor crop vegetables and two thirds of the perennial pests that affect minor crops have no suitable registered pesticides for certain conditions.For these reasons a draft of “Special Provision on Registration for Vegetable and Specialty Crop Use Pesticide” has been compiled and will be implemented in the near future. 

On 29 Aug 2014, China MoA issued announcement 2148, releasing the list of 190 testing facilities approved for pesticide registration testing. These labs were all inspected and approved by the MoA and test reports from these testing facilities will be acceptable during pesticide registration.