An official communication between China Ministry of Agriculture and Japan Ministry of Agriculture Forestry & Fisheries, concerned the related issues about China and Japan Plant Variety Rights, was hold at the meeting room of Ministry of Agriculture on February 6, 2006.

The meeting was moderated by Mr. Yang Xiongnian, Deputy Director-General of Science & Education Dept. of the Ministry of Agriculture. Simultaneously, Mr. Zhou Ping and Mr. Chen Ruming, relevant department principals, attended this meeting, as well as the President XieShunXing on behalf of Beijing SA Hengda PVR Agency Ltd.

22 Delegates from Japan Ministry of Agriculture Forestry & Fisheries, Local Government Administration Department for Plant Variety Protection and local enterprises attended the meeting. The discussion between China and Japan delegations covered 3 areas:
1. The scope of Protection in New Varieties of Plants;
2. Application fees for the New Varieties of Plants, and its information about agents & attorneys
3. The Protection of Plant Varieties

President Xie ShunXing from Beijing SA Hengda PVR Agency Ltd. said . As the biggest PVR agency in China, most of the applications we have accepted are from domestic, where foreign applications occupy less than 10%. Japanese Breeders, as one of the developed country citizen, should also afford the fees charged in China since local Chinese Breeders can afford. Contrastively, Japanese attorneys would charge professional fees under an hourly basis, which is more expensive than in China. Even though there are not many agencies performing in China recently, we do not monopolize and drive up the price of agent fees. Items of fees charged for PVR application has been made by referring to the patent application, which pertain to the international routine by answering the queries to Japan delegation, querying that fees to file a China PVR application is too expensive for Japanese Breeders and Insufficient number of PVR agency lead to a lack of competition.

President Xie said Service quality is the primary issue we consider, followed by the price. There are less than thousand PVR applications annually. Each agency may execute two or three applications if giving thousand cases to several dozen of PVR agencies. In such a case, how can they ensure the service quality, concerning about the linkage between agent price and service quality. Japan delegation, Mr. YAMATE TAIRO in respect of querying this issue, agreed and accepted answers.