In April 2021, Chinese Customs (GACC) issued a Decree making registration for foreign food and drink manufacturers mandatory from 1 January 2022 onwards. Decree 248 distinguishes between 18 categories of “high risk” products, which have to register through their member state of establishment, and “low risk” categories of food and drink products, such as wines and spirits, which will be subject to a self-registration process. Under these new rules, from 1 January 2022 onwards, all spirits producers exporting to China will need to be registered through an online platform provided by GACC, obtain a registration number from GACC and ensure that this number is listed on their import declarations. Operators will also need to display this registration number or a registration number from their country of establishment on the inner and outer packaging of the product, if this product has been manufactured after 1 January 2022. This registration process will need to be renewed every five years.
It would be easy to consider this as a simple administrative matter or a pure matter of compliance. However, the stakes are high: GACC has made it clear that without a Chinese allocated registration number on import declarations, food and drink products will not be able to clear customs anymore as of 1 January 2022. This is further complicated by the fact that the online platform that needs to be used for self-registration only became available on 1 November, and that serious IT issues have prevented most operators from registering until very recently. Although the platform has since improved and IT issues are being corrected (not least in terms of protection of commercially-confidential information), some serious difficulties remain. It is also worth noting that, although guidance is being provided, many practical and operational questions remain. Last but not least, the very large volume of operators who will need to register in time is another cause for concern, bearing in mind we have about a month before all these obligations start to apply. The few successful examples of self-registration saw a delay of 10 days to 2 weeks between submission of the registration file & allocation of a registration number – delay which could be extended as more and more operators attempt to register.
There is a sincere desire from all affected sectors – not least ours – to comply with new Chinese obligations. With exports of a value of almost €400 million for the first half of 2021 alone, China is the second export market for EU spirits and of great importance to many spirits categories. Getting this wrong is therefore not an option – neither for our sector, nor for agri-food in general – or indeed for China. We nonetheless need to be realistic and recognise the challenge that these tight deadlines – and the remaining operational questions that many sectors have – present. Operators will do their utmost best to comply with new obligations. In return, some flexibility and leniency needs to be offered to those who have tried to comply with their registration obligations – even if they have not obtained a registration number yet – in order to minimise the risk of disruption to trade.
