The new coronavirus epidemic in 2020 has brought a lot of impact to all industries in the world. A lot of domestic customers have been seeking to import pet food in recent years. Despite the impact of the epidemic, It has had a small fluctuation on the pet food industry in China regarding imported pet food, and therefore overseas manufacturing companies are still enthusiastic about exporting pet food to China, and the number has kept on rising this year, which shows that the Chinese market still has unlimited potential. At the same time, The adjustment of the Chinese government's domestic policy on imported pet food products has not only brought more opportunities but also set a high advantage to overseas manufacturing. Most manufacturing companies in the industry now are aware that to export pet food to china, require to undergo some basic process, to complete the registration of factories and products in China. The product registration is done under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, and the other process is for the export permission of factories from the General Administration of Customs. Ringone technology consulting Ltd can be able to provide an overview registration process to export pet food to China.
First of all, with regard to MARA pet food registration under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, according to the "Pet Feed Management Measures" of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, pet food is divided into three(3) categories: compound feed (main food), pet additive premix feed (pet health products, nutrition products) ), other pet food (snacks, jerky, etc.). Among them, pet compound feed and pet pre-mix feed need to apply for MARA registration. MARA registration refers to product registration. Product registration is divided into two major steps: 1) Document review requires reviewing the qualifications of the factory and product information to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Announcement No. 20. 2) Rechecking and testing of samples, to verify whether the physical and chemical indicators and sanitary indicators of the product are consistent with the materials provided in the document review. The final certificate will reflect the registration certificate number, the name of the applicant company, manufacturer and address, product name, common name, sensory indicators, scope of application, physical and chemical indicators, and certificate validity (5 years). It is essential to note that this year's registration policy has been adjusted during the review and testing phase, which has been shortened to 2 months from 3 months as before. As directly assigned by the Ministry of Agriculture to the third-party inspection agencies in various provinces and cities in China. Therefore, for the entire registration process, the application cycle is also shortened to a certain extent, which will help the applicant enterprise to obtain the import registration certificate as soon as possible.
In addition, regarding the licenses issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2020, our company has made the following statistics: As of December 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has issued a total of 639 pet food import registration certificates (only dogs and cats). According to product type classification, there are 594 pieces of compound feed (main food), and the remaining 45 pieces are additive premixed feed (pet health products). Classified by country: Canada 122, New Zealand 104, Belgium 66, Italy 59, Germany 58, United States 44, Czech Republic 28, France 25, Thailand 19, Taiwan 19, Argentina 18, Japan 18, Spain 15, Denmark 14, Austria 9, The Netherlands 8, Australia 5, Norway 3, the United Kingdom 2, Lebanon 2. In General, the number of certificates issued has increased compared to previous years. Pet staple food still maintains a large share. Canada and New Zealand have the largest number of product registrations.
In addition, Ringone technology consulting Ltd also made the following statistics on the status and number of countries that foreign pet food companies have entered China this year:
33 in Thailand, 2 in Taiwan, 1 in the Philippines, 1 in Uzbekistan, 12 in the Netherlands, 5 in France, 7 in Belgium, 21 in Germany, 3 in Denmark, 2 in the Czech Republic, 16 in Italy, 42 in the United States, There are 9 in Canada, 2 in Brazil, 6 in Argentina, 17 in Australia, 4 in Austria, and 13 in Spain. Also, there are 6 registered processing enterprises of sheep by-products exported to China for pet food processing, 120 registered processing manufacturing companies from New Zealand are being exported to China for further processing into pet food raw materials, and registered processing companies of poultry by-products exported from Kyrgyzstan to China for pet food processing 7 homes.
Among them, the number of companies exporting to China from countries such as Thailand, the Netherlands, Italy, the United States, Canada, and Argentina has increased compared to last year. Regarding the application process for foreign factories for entering to China under the General Administration of Customs of the people’s republic of china, to some extent, will be affected by some factors, such as the trade relationship between China and the other country, the scale and production capacity of the factory, the management ability of the manufacturing company, and familiarity with Chinese laws and regulations as well as the degree of implementation. In General, it takes around one(1) year for a country that has been listed on the General Administration of Customs of People’s republic of China; Suppose the applicant company will be the first to apply for GACC approval from the country still not listed by GACC, it will take longer.
Also due to some animal disease epidemics from some countries, the Chinese government has banned some products to be exported to China for some time until further notice, This involves the lifting of import restrictions on American poultry and ruminant-derived ingredients, which provides great convenience for importing American pet food. Second, Also Germany has been re-banned for entry of related poultry-related products from February 2020 due to the presence of a highly pathogenic avian influenza epidemic. Also, France, Belgium, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. have also issued a ban due to highly pathogenic avian influenza. These measures to prevent the export of pet food products containing poultry ingredients to China obviously raise the setback to export pet food to China, but at the same time provide safety guarantees for the domestic market.
