China Issues Policies to Promote Development of Its Bio Industry     

On June 2nd, 2009, China's State Council formally announced a policy package to accelerate the development of its bio industry. Objectives of the policies include (1) Guide technology, talents, capital and other resources to focus on the bio industry, promote innovation and industrialization of bio-technologies, and accelerate the scaling up, agglomeration and international development of China's bio-industry; (2) Enhance bio-enterprises' independent innovation capability, and encourage them to develop a number of important biological technologies, products and standards with independent intellectual property rights; (3) Foster several large transnational bio-enterprises and a large number of innovative small and medium-sized bio enterprises owned independent intellectual property rights, and help build a few bio-industrial bases with marked specialization.

    The government sets in the program all the major fields in bio-industry that enterprises are encouraged to develop.
     1. The biomedicine field. The government encourages enterprises to emphasize the development of new vaccines and diagnostic reagents, and actively develop drugs with significant positive medical effects: biotechnology drugs, small molecular drugs and modern Chinese medicines.
    2. The bio-agriculture field. Development of green agricultural bio-products, such as bio-pesticides, bio based feed and feed additives, bio based fertilizers, plant growth regulators, animal vaccines, diagnostic reagents, bio-veterinary drugs, bio-fishing drugs and fully biodegradable farming films is encouraged. The government also supports enterprises in developing microbial drugs and other biological agents that can resist diseases and promote the growth of crops in order to protect and improve the eco-environment of water areas.
   3. The biomass energy field. China will accelerate the development of fast-growing, high oil-content, high heat-value and high yield special energy-purpose plant species. Barren hills and wasteland are to be rationally used in planting such plants on a large scale and in bases. The development of bio-diesel, centralized bio-gas, biomass power, and molded biomass fuels are encouraged.
   4. Biological manufacturing. China will accelerate the large scale development of bio-based macromolecular advanced materials, bio-based green chemicals and sugar engineering products. Development of novel enzyme formulations and clean production technologies such as bio-bleaching, bio-pulping, bio-tanning and bio-desulfurization will be encouraged. The government will speed up the popularization and application of bio-manufacturing technologies to reduce material consumption, energy consumption and pollution.
   5.  Biological technology in environmental protection. The government encourages the development of high-performance water treatment flocculants, coagulants, fungicides and bio-packing products, and the research and industrialization of products for wastewater treatment, waste disposal and ecological restoration. The production and use of new products, such as hyperaccumulator plants, for desertification control, saline-alkali land management, water restoration and anti-heavy-metal contamination is fostered by the program.
    For these purposes, the Chinese government will actively promote international cooperation, invite foreign enterprises and individuals to set up factories and R&D institutions or carry out commissioned research in China, and encourage and support domestic enterprises who own independent intellectual property rights to set up biotechnology R&D institutions and factories overseas.
    The Chinese government will adopt fiscal and taxation policies to support these development directions. For instance, the financial administration will invest more from the budget into the research, development and industrialization of biotechnology. The central government will also ask all levels of local governments to do so. The local governments will particularly increase support to the research, development and industrialized demonstration projects of key biotechnologies according to the growth of their financial resources. The central government will give appropriate support to the fully biodegradable materials, governmentally approved non-crop fuel ethanol, bio-diesel, biomass thermal power and other important bio-energy products.
    The Chinese government will also establish a financial budget to give priority to its purchase of independently developed biological products. For identified high-tech bio-enterprises, the government will allow them to submit 15% tax on their enterprise income instead of 30%, according to related tax laws. China will further improve related tax policies for bio-agriculture, biomedicine, bio-energy and bio-based materials production enterprises that are especially encouraged and supported. The government will provide credit and loan support to qualified bio-industrial development projects and bio-industrial base construction.
   In addition to this policy support, the Chinese government will also create a good market environment for bio-industry. China will encourage and promote the use of bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers, bio-feed and feed additives and fully biodegradable films; steadily promote the pilot application of non-crop fuel ethanol and bio-diesel; and guide and urge bio-enterprises to strengthen environmental protection and ensure that their pollutant discharge is within the permitted range.
    In addition, the Chinese government will also improve the market permit regulations for biological products. China will implement the market access system for the production and sales of bio-energy in accordance with related laws. Relevant departments of the State Council will draft and refine market permit conditions for this. In accordance with related laws, China will implement market permit regulations for biological products and technologies that affect national security, human health and safety, animal and plant safety and environmental protection.
    This policy package also emphasizes the protection of intellectual property rights, the supervision of bio-safety, as well as the training of related personnel.