China is set to become an even larger player in agricultural biotechnology as it has just ratified the Biosafety Protocol and will participate as a full Party in the Third Meeting of the Parties (MOPIII) in Brazil in March 2006).
While China has begun to accept more domestic and imported biotechnology products, aspects of China's regulatory system pose potential impediments for US biotech products entering the market in China.
These barriers include requirements that product be fully approved first from the originating country before application for approval in China, unprecedented testing for products already approved in the United States, lack specific regulatory guidelines to approve stacked events, and holding only two windows a year for acceptance of applications for new products.
Several internal and external factors seem to be influencing China's biotech policy. China has sought self-reliance in grains, adding pressure for new technologies to improve output.
Bureaucratic competition seems to exist between the several ministries within the government over control of biotech policy.
Trade concerns exist over countries like Japan and Korea who have threatened not to import rice and corn from China if it become a producer of biotech varieties. Finally, China has made food security and protection of domestic development of the biotech field a priority.
Several ministries are influential in biotechnology, however the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) is the country's primary governing body over agricultural biotechnology issues. MOA Ministerial Decrees 8, 9 and 10 create the legal framework under which these products are regulated.
marketing@alchempro.com
