Overseas infant milk powder manufacturers without registration in China are no longer able to export products to the Chinese mainland market, as a series of new regulations comes into effect as of May 1.
As of April 30, 41 overseas infant milk powder manufacturers from 13 countries had been registered in China and obtained the status to export products to the Chinese market, according to the website of China Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA).
The new regulations were set in a notice released by China Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) in September 2013.
The notice said from May 1, 2014, only overseas infant milk powder manufacturers registered in China can export their products to the Chinese market.
But the registration list does not mean all their products under different brands can be exported to China, Song Liang, a Beijing-based dairy industry analyst, told the Global Times Saturday.
The regulator will also release a registration list of overseas infant milk powder brands after the Labor Day holidays, Song said, noting the manufacturer list and brand list together will further ensure the safety of imported milk powder.
Meanwhile, from April 1, 2014, labels in Chinese must be printed on the sales packages before being imported into China, and products without Chinese labels will be returned or destroyed, according to the notice.
Moreover, the notice also forbade distributing infant milk powder imported in large packages into small packages before sale. The notice required that imported infant milk powder must already be packed into the packages to be sold.
The package requirement reduces potential risks in the supply chain, Ma Wenfeng, an analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Co Ltd, told the Global Times Saturday.
If imported milk powder is repackaged after being imported, it may be polluted in the process and the manufacturers may refuse to take responsibility for the repackaged products, he explained.
At the same time, it is hard for some small domestic brands that depend on imported infant milk powder to continue their business, according to Ma.
Some small domestic companies which have no producing capacity import infant milk powder in large packages and then repackage them under their own brands, so the new regulations will bring pressure on or even bring an end to their OEM business model, he noted.
New Zealand has about 60 milk powder makers and more than 100 brands but the registration list released by Chinese regulator only contains eight New Zealand companies, The Beijing News newspaper reported Friday.
The strengthened regulation may be good news for the leading overseas infant milk powder makers and brands because the small and unqualified players will be squeezed out from the Chinese market, Song predicted.
But it will not have much of an influence on domestic makers or brands due to different consumers for each type of milk powder, according to Song.
China imported 120,000 tons of infant milk powder in 2013, with 36.3 percent year-on-year growth, equal to 17 percent of domestic infant milk powder output in the same year, the Beijing Morning Post newspaper reported in January.
