BY STAS MARGARONIS
On December 21st, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had provided lists of U.S. food exporters in compliance with a Chinese Customs deadline of January 1st, 2022:
“The FDA has provided the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) lists of U.S. establishments that sought to be recommended for registration in China via the FDA’s Export Listing Module (ELM) … the FDA requested that the GACC register these establishments without delay so these establishments could continue to export their goods after January 1, 2022. FDA provided this information to minimize any disruption in trade.”
In response to the FDA announcement, a U.S. agricultural export analyst stated : “At least we know that FDA has submitted the list to GACC. Hopefully, GACC will accept the lists without declaration letter and proceed in assigning GACC approval numbers. It should be an interesting New Year!”
The FDA announcement said the United States was concerned about how China will apply its new customs regulations on food and agricultural exporters: “At the same time, the U.S. government continues to engage with Chinese officials to express concern about the nature of the requirements and gain clarity about how China will apply the new requirements to U.S. products. In particular, the United States is continuing to seek confirmation that competent authority recommendation is not a requirement for U.S. facilities to register with China. Given the ongoing lack of clarity, the United States is continuing to press China for a delay in implementation of these Decrees by at least 18 months.”
On December 6th, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it is asking companies “exporting certain food products to China to voluntarily submit information. We are making this request in response to new facility registration requirements from China. While China has not confirmed that collecting this information is a prerequisite for U.S. establishments to export to China, the FDA is making this request as a precaution against potential trade disruption.”
The new Chinese Customs requirements go into effect on January 1st, 2022 and the FDA was asking food exporters to China to submit information to the FDA by December 17th, 2021 to meet the Chinese deadline.
At that time, the FDA said “Articles 7 and 8 of the Decree require the exporting countries’ competent authorities to recommend registration of establishments involved in the export to China of certain food categories.”