On May 1, 2025, China released amended regulations governing the protection of new plant varieties. The amendments enhance the protection of new plant varieties, establish an essentially derived varieties system, extend the protection periods, shorten preliminary examination time, and strengthen the management of foreign variety rights applications.
On April 24, 2025, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) notified the National Standard for Legume Herbage Seed (Draft for Comments) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) under G/TBT/N/CHN/2053.
The European Parliament took an initial step to open market access for beet and oilseed planting seeds from Ukraine. The EU approved cereal planting seeds from Ukraine in 2020.