China Agri News Week 22, 2020

This is the news overview of week 22 from the agricultural team of the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing.

Proposal to Remove Infant Formula off Cross-Border E-Commerce Positive List

During the annualy plenary session, one National People’s Congress (NPC) deputy, and director of the Quality and Inspection Control Center of Yili Industrial Group proposed to take infant formula (IF) of the cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) list. Instead, the deputy argues to impose strict import regulations for IF imports. 

According to the newly amended Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (2018), IF is not allowed to be sold on the Chinese market without official registration. But since the IF Milk Powder Product Formula Registration Management Measures is still in the process of development, the current CBEC IF retail doesn’t need to obtain the relevant product formulation registration certificate. In addition, the CBEC imports don’t require custom entry inspection, or other administrative quality inspections. 

According to the NPC deputy, the lack of regulation for foreign IF products through CBEC channels into the country has become a major security risk in China's IF market and continues to undermine fair competition between Chinese and foreign retailers (source, Chinese only: Beijing Business News). 

Elema Continues to Build a Country-Wide Smart Agricultural Trade Integrated Service System

Elema (饿了么), one of China’s biggest online-to-offline catering and food delivery platform in China, have said that they will complete the renovation of traditional vegetable farms in 100 Chinese cities by the end of this year. The renovation will include improvements in food safety traceability, digital marketing, an elaborate distribution system, and advanced payment technology.

By using big data and smart solutions, Elema aims to advance online-to-offline supply, to reduce food waste and drainage of resources, and shorten farmer to customer production chain. 

As of now, some farms have already set up a live studio where agricultural products can be sold through live broadcasting (source, Chinese only: International Fruit).

Short News:

  • On May 22nd, premier Li Keqiang presented the government's work report, stating that China is to establish approximately 5.3 million hectares of new high-standard arable land in 2020 (source, Chinese only: People’s Daily).
  • The Ministry of Commerce stated that pork prices have fallen for 12 consecutive weeks. (source, Chinese only: Farmers’ Daily, May 25th). 
  • In the second week of May, the average price of fresh milk was 3,56 yuan/kg. This is a slight drop of 0.3% compared to the week before (source, Chinese only: Nai Niu Wei Kan). 
  • On May 20th, the 2020 International Biodiversity Day event was held in Beijing. Premier Li Keqiang emphasized the importance of the development of the sector, stating that biodiversity is an important foundation for human survival and development, as well as harmony between man and nature (source, Chinese only: Farmers’ Daily, May 21st).