Friday, March 29, 2024

New law will benefit Kiwi velvet exporters

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An initially frustrating new Chinese law will benefit New Zealand velvet producers, Deer Industry New Zealand Asia market manager Rhys Griffiths says.
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In December the Chinese Government passed law to give much higher status to traditional Chinese medicine and give it a bigger role in the medical system.

That was expected to have long-term benefit for producers of premier Chinese medicine ingredients including deer velvet, Griffiths said.

The new regulation had initially contributed to the later than usual start to the NZ velvet-selling season as customers in China who had previously imported velvet as an agricultural by-product needed to get a pharmaceutical processing or trading licence before they could again import velvet.

The new law was preceded by a new, rigorous food safety law that came into force in October 2015 and regulations imposed last year to improve the safety of China’s food and traditional medicine supply chains.

Griffiths said the roll-out of the regulations had coincided with the 2016-17 NZ velvet season, disrupting sales to Chinese buyers.

“Importers who had previously imported velvet as an agricultural by-product needed to get a pharmaceutical processing or trading licence before they could get an import permit.

“In some cases this has required premises and procedures to be upgraded, changes that take time,” Griffiths said.

“The new regulations make it clear that NZ velvet is a legitimate health-promoting ingredient that can definitely be used in traditional Chinese medicines and healthy functional foods in China, a big positive for NZ,” he said.

Previously, the legal status of NZ velvet in medicines and functional foods was unclear, which meant companies had been reluctant to invest in food products containing NZ velvet.

“These companies welcome the changes. Working with similar companies in Korea has served our industry very well.”

The new Chinese law, to take effect on July 1, was central to the reform of the medical and health sectors.

According to Xinhua, the New China News Agency, it was intended to put traditional and Western medicines on an equal footing with better training for traditional professionals.

Traditional and Western medicines practitioners would be expected to learn from and complement each other.

County-level governments and above must set up traditional medicine institutions in public-funded general hospitals and mother and child care centres with private investment encouraged in them.

All traditional practitioners must pass tests while apprentices and previously unlicensed specialists with considerable medical experience could begin practice only when they had recommendations from at least two qualified practitioners and had passed relevant tests.

The state would protect medical resources including the breeding of rare or endangered wildlife, the law said.

It also pledged enhanced supervision of raw traditional materials and banned the use of toxic pesticides.

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