Brasília, 3/25/2004(Agência Brasil) - China has accepted an evaluation of Brazilian genetically- modified (GM) soybeans by the National Biosecurity Technical Commission (CTNBio) which states that they do not pose any biological threat. With acceptance of the CTNBio document by the Chinese government, Brazilian exporters can use it as a sanitary certificate and freely ship soybeans to China. The certification is mandatory under Chinese law and became necessary when Brazil revealed that some of the soybeans it exports from the 2003/2004 harvest may be GM.

The importance of this lies in the fact that China has become the biggest importer of Brazilian soybeans. At the moment, China buys almost 20% of Brazilian soybean exports. In 2003, China bought 6.1 million tons of raw Brazilian soybeans, worth US$1.3 billion, plus another US$300 million in soybean oil. (translator: Allen Bennett)