On 11 Feb 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MoARA), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Ministry of Commerce (MoFCOM), the State Administration of Market Regulation and the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration (NFSRA) jointly issued the “National Strategic Plan for Agricultural Revitalization through Quality Enhancement (2018-2022)”, which was compiled under the National Strategic Plan for Rural Development (2018-2022), aimed at boosting the agricultural efficiency and competitiveness and transforming China from an advanced agricultural country. The document acknowledged the recent achievements in agricultural development, but China's agriculture needs to embrace the crucial opportunities of rural development and consumption upgrading. Series of quantitative goals to be achieved by 2022, including quality of agricultural products, industrial structure, output efficiency, quality of farmers and international competitive strength. 4 developmental directions were pointed out and 7 massive agricultural projects will be implemented.

On 30 Jan 2019, the National Health Commission published 6 voluntary hygienic standards for biocidal products, which will take effect on 1 Jul 2019. Among them, the “WS/T 650-2019 Evaluating Method for Efficacy of Antibacterial and Bacteriostasis” was firstly issued. The standard specifies 13 testing methods, procedures the application scope and criteria for commonly used items with antimicrobial claim including hand cleaner, sprays, gels, wet wipe, facial mask, sanitary towel, diaper, towel, underwear, socks, fabric, plastics, floorboards and tiles, etc. These antimicrobial products are mostly categorized as the Category II disinfection products but comparatively in a regulatory grey zone because most of them are not yet included into the pre-marketing assessment. Considering the complicacy of product type and feature, WS/T 650-2019 can be an evident progress and these commonly used antimicrobial products are likely to be brought into supervision after NHC made adequate clarification on product definition/scope, necessity of risk/safety assessment and relevant evaluation guidelines.

On 2 Jan 2019, China NATESC (National Agricultural Technology Extension and Service Center) made a pests forecast on 2019, which was concluded after a thorough expert consultation in December 2018. Based on the pest population, plant distribution, cropping pattern and climate trends, total affected area could reach 300 million hectares in 2019.

On 25 Dec 2018, MoARA released the Announcement 118 on testing facilities for pesticide registration. Compare to the lab list announced on Oct 25, 10 labs were newly added, most of which were approved to generate pesticide efficacy and product chemistry data.

In 2018, the Chinese fertilizer industry has experienced price hike and weak demand led by stringent regulations on environmental and quality promotion, polarizing market. As the end of 2018 approaches, we summarized 10 most influencing policies chronologically and offered a brief analysis on their effects.

On 24 Dec 2018, China ICAMA released the full version of GB2763-2018.1(Maximum Residue Limits for 43 Pesticides in Foods) and other 8 testing methods, which were earlier announced by NHC, MoARA and SAMR on 22 Jun 2018. As a supplement to the national MRL regulation, GB2763-2018.1 will be concurrently enforced with the GB2763-2016.

The Special Rules were promulgated in 2007 after scathing criticism was leveled at China by both domestic and international interests due to China’s long history of product quality and safety issues. The Special Rules were designed to essentially fill in the cracks and loopholes left by other laws and regulations and to cohesive management of consumer product safety and quality. China has a comparatively complete legal system governing the scope of what would normally be defined as consumer goods. This legal framework consists of 11 laws and 22 regulations including Food Hygiene Law, Law on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products, Product Quality Law Pharmaceutical Administration Law, Regulation on the Administration of Hog Slaughter, Regulation on the Administration of Animal Feed and Feed Additives, Regulation on the Implementation of Food Safety Law and Regulation on the Hygiene Supervision over Cosmetics and the Regulation on the Implementation of the Food Safety Law etc.. Nevertheless, despite the strong legal foundation provided by these laws China’s regulatory authorties have underperformed in terms of their enforcement, supervision and oversight on almost all links in the associated supply chains. The special rules also provide regulatory authorties with a useful tool to help realize an improvement in product quality and safety.

Recently, Beijing authorities upheld a decision to impose an administrative sanction on a famous e-commerce platform after it was discovered selling non-compliant water dispensers. Beijing NHC imposed a fined of 310,000 Yuan, which exceeds normal sanction guidelines issued in China’s water product regulations. Based on our analysis of the explanation released by authorities it appears that authorites tend to view water related products as consumer products with the potential to impact human health which are specifically regulated by “special rules” . Going forward we expect water related product compliance violations, particuarly those that impact the safety of products to be subject to fines similar to those for cosmetics, medical devices, medicines, household appliance, children’s toys, labor protection goods, auto parts and other life and health related products.

Recently, MoARA officials answered questions on the latest “Special Measures (Negative List) for the Access of Foreign Investment (2018)”, which dramatically loosened market entry restrictions on overseas seed companies. MoARA described the simplification of administrative procedures associated with production and marketing approvals and also the reinforcement of intellectual property protection on patent varieties.

China’s overseas consumption maintained an annual average growth of 25.2% from 2005 to 2014 and the consumption rose to a record of 1,200 billion CNY in 2015, of which 680 billion CNY was for overseas shopping. At the same time, slowing export earnings and investment have left national consumption the only remaining economic driver, which contribute 66.4% of the economy. As China has cut import tariffs on 1,449 categories of consumer products starting from 1 Jul 2018 and the minimum income-tax threshold is expected to be elevated by October this year. Increasing competition between homemade and imported products becomes foreseeable, especially China’s industrial upgrading has been already well underway. This article combines China’s quality legislative program on consumer products, plus the expert analysis and comment on these latest economic policies, as well as a statistical analysis on distributor/purchaser preferences on different product sectors.  Quality Improvement Plan On 19 May 2015, China presented the national strategy on “Made in China 2025” to move up its position in the global value chain and the importance of consumer product quality standardization and improvement was then proposed by Premier Li Keqiang during the Congress meeting. China believes quality legislation and monitoring mechanism can expand more demand/ availability to domestic producers and force the technological upgrading of producers and upstream equipment manufacturer/raw material suppliers in all dimension. On 6 Sep. 2016, the State Council promulgated the “Improvement Plan for the Standardization and Quality of Consumer Products”, which outlines the key objectives and implementing strategies and priority on different product sectors. China will continue the perfecting of standard system by developing and refining of new/existing quality standard, as well as branding of homemade products and higher premi