The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ("MARA") has recently issued the Implementing Rules for the Regulations on Plant Quarantine (Agriculture Part) (Revised Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") for public comment by November 22, 2019.
The Draft for Comment proposes revisions in four aspects as below. The first is implementing the working mechanism of "government leadership, territorial responsibilities, and joint precautions and control", and stressing the monitoring, interception, precautions against, and control of serious disease epidemics in plants. The second is establishing the category-based level-to-level administrative system for disease epidemics in agricultural plants, optimizing the categorization criteria and procedures, demarcating the boundaries of the affected areas, the areas where the epidemics are distributed, and the non-affected areas, and rolling out different administrative approaches for different areas. The third is strengthening regulation of quarantine tests on seeds, seedlings and other propagating materials. All seeds produced in China for propagation will undergo quarantine tests at the place of origin, and a whole-process regulatory regime that covers record-filing of seed propagation bases, quarantine tests at the place of origin, quarantine tests during distribution, and market inspections, will be set up, and in response to the implementation of the Seed Law, the seed sales record system will be created and the regulatory regime featuring whole-process traceability over from seed production to seeding will be optimized. And the fourth is further improving and simplifying the administrative approval procedures for plant quarantine, as required by the reform of "delegating power, streamlining administration and strengthening regulation, and improving services".