In response to the tight supply of disinfectants caused by 2019 Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV), on February 3, 2020, the National Health Committee released "The Emergency Product Launching Notification of Disinfectants during Prevention And Control Period of Pneumonia Outbreak Caused by 2019-nCoV". Under this emergency measure, China has opened a "Green Channel," entailing expedited and exceptional market access for four types of disinfectants, including alcohol disinfectant, chlorine-containing disinfectant, chlorine dioxide disinfectant, and peracetic acid disinfectant placing on China market (see below). According to the Notification: Disinfectants that use alcohol as the active substance can be placed on the Chinese market after completing content tests either by the manufacturers (for the domestic disinfectants) or by Chinese legal entity (for the imported disinfectants) or 3rd party laboratories. For hand-application alcohol disinfectants, the alcohol concentration in the disinfectants should be higher than 60% (V/V). The raw materials used in ethanol disinfectants shall conform to the requirements regulated in the national standard “GB26373-2010 Hygienic Standard for Alcohol Disinfectants," and ethanol concentration should be 70% - 80% (V/V); Chlorine-containing disinfectants, chlorine dioxide disinfectants, and peroxyacetic acid disinfectants can be placed on the Chinese market after completing the content test and pH test and compliant with related standards. The period of validity for “84” liquid disinfectants containing sodium hypochlorite should be limited to 3 months, with the exception that products can be distributed and used until expiration date supported by the qualified stability test data. The producers of disinfectants already on the market that has completed record filing are encouraged to expand their production by adding new production lines, new plants, and production sites. The dis

On 30 Dec 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs released 192 GM crops to be issued with GMO safety certificate, of which 3 were homegrown grain crops with herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant traits. Since the last time China approved food GM crops was in 2009, this move was interpreted by some analysts as another attempt to promote the commercial plantation of GM grain crops. Seed companies thus became increasingly sought after by investors on the stock market as GM grain crops would be commercially planted as soon as the next 2 or 3 years. Homegrown GM Food Crops Only GM crops issued with GMO biosafety certificates can be imported and consumed in China, but there are two more administrative steps to commercializing a plantation: the crop variety examination and the seed license. In 2009, MoA (now known as MoARA) issued 3 GMO safety certificates to 2 insect-resistant rice varieties developed by HZAU( Huazhong Agricultural University) and 1 transgenic phytase maize co-developed by CAAS( Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science) and Origin Seed, but the remaining procedures were stalled due to strong public opposition after a series of GM food-related scandals. The GM grain crops announced this time are 2 maize and 1 soybean developed by indigenous institutions, and the traits and permitted planting regions are as follows: GM Food Crop Developer Trait Region DBN Maize Da Bei Nong Group Bt Cry1Ab, CP4 EPSPS Spring maize zone in Northern China Dual-resistant Maize Ruifeng Biotech and Zhejiang University Cry1Ab/Cry2Aj, G10evo EPSPS SHZD Soybean Shanghai Jiao Tong University Glyphosate-tolerant soybean zone in Southern China Analyzing Necessity Given the fact that no biosafety certi

On 15 Aug 2019, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs and the State Administration of Market Regulation jointly issued the “GB 2763-2019 National Food Safety Standard: Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides in Foods”, which will take effect on 15 Feb 2020. The one major new feature in this release is that the number of MRLs in GB 2763-2019 for the first time exceeds those developed by Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC standard), the most universally recognized pesticide MRL standard in the world, marking another new step forward in food safety and agricultural trade. In this article, we will explain the evolution if this regulation and introduce its main features based on comparative analysis, sharing some prospects on the future trend of China's pesticide MRL regulation. large Numbers of MRLs for Food Categories Specified by GB 2763-2019 Recent Updates In the past, the former Ministry of Health (now referred to as NHC) was mainly responsible for developing pesticide MRLs in the form of food hygienic safety standards, while the Ministry of Agriculture (now referred to as MoARA) also developed a series of MRLs as quality standards for agricultural commodities. Until 2009, China enacted the Food Safety Law and MoA was designated to develop pesticide MRLs and relevant testing methods. The ministry began to organize the previously disparate MRLs and released the first unified MRL regulation,  GB 2763-2012, which has then been revised amost every 2 years: Development of GB 2763 Series: a Full Timeline Code year of issue Number of Pesticides Number of MRLs GB 2763-2012 2012 322 2293 GB 2763-2014 2014 387 3650 GB 2763-2016

On 6 Aug 2019, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs disclosed a response to the suggestions and proposals regarding the extension of biopesticides from the NPC deputies. The ministry publicly clarified its policy support to biopesticides and hope this product category can play an expanded role in the national action plans of chemical pesticide substitution and agricultural quality enhancement. In this article, we will introduce China’s concrete efforts toward green development, but most importantly, we hope a contrastive analysis on the data gap between conventional pesticides and 3 typical biopesticides could help agrochemical companies to determine the tactical and effective strategic implementation for the market entry of biopesticides in China.

China uses 6% of the world's water resources, 9% of the world’s farmland and 30% of the world’s chemical fertilizers to produce 26% of the agricultural products in the world. China’s annual irrigation water consumption is 360 billion tons per year but there is still an input gap of 30 billion tons. The agricultural output per water consumption was only 1 kg per ton, half the efficiency that the US and Israel achieved. Despite China leading the world in agrochemical use, with an annual chemical fertilizer consumption of 54 million tons, the average utilization efficiency is merely 30%, about 20 percent lower than in developed countries. The "high consumption but low efficiency" pattern in agricultural production has brought about a huge waste of resources and increased levels of environmental pollution, not to mention the fact that it has become one of the greatest bottlenecks constraining agricultural development. In the "National Strategic Plan for Agricultural Revitalization through Quality Enhancement (2018-2022)”, China planned to improve its fertilizer utilization efficiency to 41% by 2022, which us expected to have encouraging effects on certain agricultural inputs such as water-soluble fertilizers (WSF). Imperative Fertilization and Irrigation Integration The water-saving irrigation strategy was first put forward in 2004 and has been repeatedly emphasized by the “N01 Central Document” for 12 consecutive years. In 2011, China’s NATESC (National Agricultural Technology Extension and Service Center) identified fertilization and irrigation integration as the number one agricultural practice to be deployed nationwide. In 2015, MoA (now known as the MoARA) issued its ambitious “Action Plan for the Zero-growth of Chemical Fertilizer Uses by 2020” which means 5.33 million hectares of the farmland will be treated with an integration of fertilization and irrigation systems and the

Early this year, MUJI announced a worldwide recall of its bottled water products after detecting excessive bromate contaminant, a disinfection by-product (DBP) generated during ozone disinfection. Although the products mentioned in the recall notice have never entered Chinese mainland, the news was quickly spread on social media Weibo and aroused much widespread concern over drinking water safety, whose market penetration of water purifier/disinfector is only about 20% and household water purifier market will keep a growth of over 10% until 2022. This article explains how the drinking water disinfectants and DBPs are regulated in China and the latest regulatory developments in drinking water quality standard, the GB 5749, which is closely related to the premarket approval of drinking water-related products. Health Supervision of Drinking Water Related Products The drinking water regulatory system stems from the “Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Disease” and the “Administrative Measures for the Sanitation Supervision on Domestic Drinking Water”. The production and marketing of drinking-water treatment/disinfection/delivery devices, chemical agents and protection materials should obtain the hygienic approval from health administrative departments at national or provincial level. Drinking-water-related products can be classified into existing products and new products by the “Criteria for determining water-related products using new material, new technology and new substances”, which specified the names and use scopes of 90 existing substances and treatment technologies and water-related products using these substances and technologies are approved by provincial departments. In some provinces, the review on homemade material and tubes is further delegated to city department. Table 1-Existing Substances and Processing Technologies Used in Drinking Water Related Products Type

The removal of export taxes on chemical fertilizers, the enactment of the “Soil Pollution and Control Law”, and series of new/revised fertilizer standards are bringing far-reaching effects on Chinese fertilizer market, which is invariably moving towards rationalization, high-efficient, specialization and greenization. This article offers an overall conclusion on the likeliest regulatory and market outcomes in 2019, as well as an in-depth analysis of the new tendencies. Liberalization on secondary/micronutrients claim The labeling and marking of all commercial fertilizers should conform to the national standard, “GB 18382-2001 Fertilizer Marking: Presentation and Declaration”. The mandatory standard was promulgated by AQSIQ (now known as SMAR) as early as 2001 when China has not yet developed intact and unified testing methods for secondary/micronutrients. Expedient measures were adopted to protect growers from being misled: Compound or complex fertilizers containing secondary/micronutrients are generally prohibited from claiming on their medium/micronutrient content; Secondary nutrient fertilizers should mark the name and content of each secondary nutrient as well as the total secondary nutrient. If a secondary/micronutrient in a secondary nutrient fertilizer is below 2%/0.02%, the fertilizer shall not be marked with the secondary/micronutrient; Along with the scientific development and the market penetration of secondary/micronutrient fertilizers, both the growers and fertilizer producers have realized the importance of secondary/micronutrient in agricultural production. In late 2017, MIIT and 12 other ministries drafted an amendment to GB 18382, which has been submitted for final approval. The amendment removed the restriction on secondary/micronutrient claims. Considering the time required for a compulsory standard nationwide, the revised standard is very likely to be promulgated this year. Biostimulant is r

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.

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

Rice contributes to 60% of the world’s grain supply and rice growing/consumption regions tend have the largest populations and largest economies in the world. Given the likelihood of increased global demand for rice, we can expect a concomitant increase in the paddy herbicide market, which already accounts for 40% of the plant protection products used. The paddy herbicide market is characterized by diverse combinations of active ingredients and is influenced by multiple factors such as climate, agricultural practices, and agricultural development level, national food security policies and international trade. To help readers better comprehend this niche and variable market, this analysis summarizes the scale and characteristics of rice plantation, herbicide use and market conditions in the major rice growing regions globally. The global rice growing area was 160.1 million hectares in 2016, up 0.8% year-on-year. The overall plantation area has been stable in recent years. Rice is universally planted in temperate and tropical regions and the top rice-growing country is India, followed by China, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand. India was second behind China in rice output due to its moderate productivity of 2.6 ton per hectare. China is the largest and the most efficient rice producer with an annual output of 144.9 million tons and boasts a per unit output of 4.8 ton per hectare. large Plantation Area, Output adn Annual Changes in Major Rice Growing Countries in 2016 Rice price, inventory, weather condition and currency exchange rate are the major factors affecting rice plantation and paddy herbicide market. In 2016, the United States, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines have increased rice area while the plantation decreased in India, Japan, Pakistan and Brazil. Although rice price was low, the weather condition was conducive to high overall production volume in Asia. Self-sufficiency policies in Indonesia and Malaysia also he