After Zero Growth of Pesticide Policies was issued, more and more Chinese pesticide manufacturers are trying to explore international market and achieved progress. In 2014, the total pesticide exportation volume from China to Latin America is 0.5 million tons valuing 35.8 billion USD. There are many countries in Latin America and Chinese manufacturers have covered 32 out of 34 Latin countries. The export value to top 10 countries accounts for more than 90% total export value. The well-performed manufacturers include Rainbow Chem., Fuhua Tongda, Youth Chem., Wynca, Red Sun, Ninhuang, and Jiangshan Argochem exporting more than 1 billion USD respectively.
(Data source: Latin America Agrochemical Market Review by Ms. Zhang Aijuan on 10th Market Procurement and Services International Forum)
From the figure above, Latin America market can be divided into 3 tiers. Undoubtedly, Brazil and Argentina are tier-1 countries, accounting more than half of the whole exportation value. According to data of Sindiveg’s research, China is still the largest pesticide provider for Brazil in 2014, making up 26% of Brazil’s total importation value. Based on Ms. Zhang’s introduction, tier-1 countries mainly import TC. While, percentage of preparation products was growing in tier-2 countries like Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, and Paraguay in 2014.
Regarding the pesticide products, from the following chart, it can be found that the products concentrated on large amount mainstream products. Herbicide products accounts for almost half of the total products. Although, Glyphosate and Paraquat are the top 2 consumed products in Latin America, they are under risk of elimination from market due to environment safety issues.
(Data source: Latin America Agrochemical Market Review by Ms. Zhang Aijuan on 10th Market Procurement and Services International Forum)
Safety of Glyphosate has been under fierce debate all this years, Brazil government even plan to review the toxic data, but, recently update toxic profile by EFSA in early November of 2015 confirmed the safety again and approved application of Glyphosate, which might ease Glyphosate’s trade.
But, Paraquat products trade may be influenced heavily in 2016. The Anvisa of Brazil issued a protocol to ban protocol and related products in October. Anvisa would accept public suggestions and judgment on whether to ban application of Paraquat in Brazil druing 16th Oct. to 30th Oct. 2015. Additionally, the protocol suggested to cancelling all toxicology report o and refusing pending toxicology assessment of Paraquat and its salts TC and preparation products. The protocol even suggests stopping importing any Paraquat and its salts TC and preparation products in agricultural and animal husbandry areas when the regulation comes into act. But the elimination of Paraquat may cause higher cost for famers and finally influence consumer’s buying price. The final result is still uncertain, and Chemlinked suggest manufacturers to pay a close attention to any updates about the protocol.
According to the market distribution data, the whole Latin America especially Brazil is a very important market for Chinese pesticide manufacturers. Due to language and culture difference, more attention is paid to environmental toxicology, regulatory updates happens more frequently, following the regulatory and political information is far from enough, Chinese manufacturers are more urgent to develop more eco-friendly products so to strengthen international competitiveness.
