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Background: In April, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) issued the new version of “Administrative Provisions on Registration of Overseas Manufacturers of Imported Foods (Decree No. 248)”, which will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2022. It stipulates that all food categories, excluding food additives and food-related products, shall be subject to overseas manufacturer registration. All you should know about Decree 248 can be found here. |
GACC recently released a query platform (https://ciferquery.singlewindow.cn/) where overseas food manufacturers, their Chinese importers and other stakeholders can now check the registration information of overseas manufacturers of imported food easily.
After the release of the CIFER registration system on Nov 1, 2021, 20,172 applications have passed the manufacturer registration review up until the moring of Dec 24, 2021. Since registration numbers will be given based on different food categories, manufacturers producing foods under different categories will have more than one registration number.
Note: The registration numbers for certain food products have not been released in this query platform yet. Manufacturers can stay tuned with the query platform, or they can log in the registration system to check the approved registration number.
By Country or Area
As we can see from the query platform, the registration of manufacturers is proceeding normally and quickly. Applications from the 20 areas below occupy 76% of the total approvals. Among them, Russia, US and France are the top 3 countries with the most approvals.
No. | Country/Area | Number of approvals | Proportion | No. | Country/Area | Number of approvals | Proportion |
1 | Russia | 2512 | 12.5% | 11 | Thailand | 483 | 2.4% |
2 | US | 2200 | 11% | 12 | Canada | 482 | 2.4% |
3 | France | 1649 | 8.2% | 13 | Taiwan | 417 | 2.1% |
4 | Italy | 1035 | 5.1% | 14 | Germany | 409 | 2% |
5 | Japan | 987 | 4.9% | 15 | Malaysia | 372 | 1.8% |
6 | Spain | 889 | 4.4% | 16 | Kazakhstan | 367 | 1.8% |
7 | New Zealand | 705 | 3.5% | 17 | Vietnam | 320 | 1.6% |
8 | South Korea | 588 | 3% | 18 | India | 279 | 1.4% |
9 | Australia | 564 | 2.8% | 19 | Indonesia | 270 | 1.3% |
10 | Sri Lanka | 539 | 2.7% | 20 | UK | 268 | 1.3% |
By Category
Among the currently approved applications, alcoholic drink accounts for the most proportion, followed by dairy products, meat & meat products, and edible oil & oilseeds. These four categories take over 54% of the total approval. Notably, one-third of the approvals of alcoholic drinks are from France.
Click ChemLinked online course and hot topic (All you should know about GACC Decree 248) to see how to apply for the registration number.
For further questions or inquiries about the GACC food manufacturer registration service, please email [email protected].
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