U.S., China pledge to improve collaboration on biotech

December 18, 2014

WASHNGTON - At a US-China trade meeting in Chicago on Wednesday, US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and Chinese Vice Premier, Wang Yang, agreed that efforts to improve collaboration on biotechnology “are critical, as they work to ensure that there is enough food to feed the world’s growing population”.

 In the words of Vilsack after the meeting, the two countries are “moving toward an understanding of how we might be able to establish a strategic dialogue on biotechnology”.

US agricultural and food companies understandably are paying close attention to China, which takes nearly 20% of US farm exports. China’s 1.3 billion people represent a booming market for US agricultural products.

However, certain barriers to US imports of genetically modified crops have posed substantial obstacles to seed companies’ new product launches. China’s Vice Minister of Agriculture, Niu Dun, echoed Vilsack’s sentiments after the meeting, saying the countries need to deepen their strategic co-operation in agriculture.

“The key would be for us to have greater alignment between our regulatory systems and their regulatory systems. Not that we would dictate what conclusions they would reach, but that we would better synchronsze, or time, what we do. The Chinese have been reluctant to do that,” Vilsack said, adding that the Chinese regulatory process for products did not even begin until the US process is complete, which could delay a product launch “by a matter of years”.  www.webershandwick.cn (ATI).