On 28 Dec 2012, China Ministry of Agricultural (MOA) and General Administration of Customs (GAC) jointly published the Announcement1880 to update the “Inventory of Pesticide under Import and Export Management in China”.

The CCPIA revealed that “Limit Standard of Harmful Solvents for Emulsifiable Concentrates Pesticide Preparations" has been finalized and will be issued in no time.The standard sets the limit level of several harmful solvents which are commonly used in the emulsifiable concentrates (EC) of the pesticide preparations.

China is one of the largest pesticide exporters in the world with  exports of 1,440,000 tons in 2011. Chinese pesticides are however criticized by the international stakeholders for being inferior and of poor quality. To combat the dismal reputation of Chinese products, the government is developing new regulations. Although the final legal text of new pesticide regulation has not been published, inferences on its content and scope can be made based on statments made by officials from the ICAMA (the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture). Boosted R&D Oriented and Environmental-friendly Players The Chinese industry is saturated by small and medium sized companies producing a limited number of pesticides. Therefore, fierce competition and underselling of these pesticides to the overseas market is a common phenomenon. R&D activities are almost completely isolated to a number of the larger Chinese companies and of course multinational corportations.In China, pesticide companies are required to obtain both the ICAMA registration and the manufacturing permit issued by industrial authorities: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) or the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). Only manufacturing companies can be granted the ICAMA registration therefore there is little incentive for R&D. This dilemma will only be solved when registration for new pesticides can be applied for by  non-manufacturing companies and the registration certification can be subsequently transferred to other manufacturers. Furthermore, the “one registration certificate, one manufacturing permit” policy required by manufacturers is also likely to be relaxed. Under this potential ammendment if a pesticide company has been granted a manufacturing permit but not yet granted ICAMA registration, it can be commissioned by other ICAMA registration holders to manufacture the produ

Last month in Hangzhou, official from the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture (ICAMA) has listed ten active ingredients most frequently registered with ICAMA certification in the past three years.

On 6 Dec 2012, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Health co-published the “Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food(GB 2763-2012)”, which will be uniquely and compulsorily implemented from 1 Mar 2013. Meanwhile, other 6 national standards and 10 industrial standards regarding pesticide MRLs will be repealed from then on.

A seminar regarding China’s pesticide regulation was held by the ICAMA (the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture) in Hangzhou on Nov 12nd and 13rd. GuBaogen, the deputy director of the ICAMA, together with other government officials in the pesticide management field , have presented detailed information on the new “Regulation on Management of Agricultural Chemicals” and explained their preliminary thoughts on data requirements in the dossiers.

Late last month in Nanjing, Sui Pengfei, director of the ICAMA (Institute for the control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture) revealed in an industrial conference that China to issue new regulation for pesticide and the legal text will be promulgated by December 2012 the latest.

There are four correlated regulations are available for the agrochemical companies to maintain their intellectual properties in China. However due to China’s backward IP protection system and different interpretations by different competent authorities, patent protection is increasingly favored by  MNCs and Chinese companies. 

On 21st September, 2012, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has announced on its website to launch anti-dumping investigation against the pyridine imported from Japan and India. The decision was made under the petition from four major pesticide companies. On August 2nd, 2012, Anhui Guoxing Biochem, Nanjing Redsun, Weifang Lvba and Nantong Ruili Chemicals have jointly filed a complaint with the MoC, alleging dumping of pyridine from Japanese and Indian Manufacturers.  

China Hunan Department of Agriculture promulgated two local laws regarding pesticide management, the “blacklist management system on pesticide” and the “inspection system on pesticide”. As a major agricultural and agrochemical consumption province in China, Hunan is to strengthening its supervision on the crop protection market by increasing and routinizing its inspection upon the agrochemical producers and distributors.