Inside this Issue: Non Tariff Measures for Food and Agriculture US and EU Farm Policies Amid Tight Budgets Zero Threshold for Low Level Presence of Biotech Agricultural Export Restrictions China’s Biosafety Regulations Recent Publications

China’s Biosafety Regulations – Import and Export Implications With China becoming a net importer of corn, concerns surrounding trade disruptions due to low level presence (LLP) of GM corn events not yet approved in China in commodity shipments have increased. As part of its LLP series (see related article), a case study on China points out that China’s import approval process can only commence when a submitter has already received full regulatory approval in their country of origin, which results in significant asynchronicity in approvals. Out of 29 GM corn events approved in the US, for example, only 11 were approved in China as of 2010. The paper also points out that although China has commercialized several GM crops and has a significant number in the research and regulatory pipeline, it has so far not opted to seek approval of its GM crop events in any foreign country. This could lead to trade disruptions affecting Chinese rice exports, although these exports are declining, but also growing exports of processed rice products. The paper recommends that: