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Announcement No. 69 is MOFCOM's routine annual notice fixing the national total export quota for a fixed basket of goods that China manages under its Foreign Trade Law quota-and-licence regime — distinct from the strategic-minerals STE/dual-use export-control architecture (e.g. Announcement No. 68 of 2025 on tungsten/ antimony/silver, filed separately). The 2026 basket is unchanged in composition from prior years: licorice and licorice products, artificially cultivated medicinal ephedra, sawn timber, cattail (bulrush) and cattail products, plus three livestock quotas earmarked exclusively for the Hong Kong and Macao markets (live pigs, live cattle, live chickens for Hong Kong only).
Export traders (other than the bidding-allocated licorice/cattail quotas) applied to provincial commerce departments between 1-15 November 2025, who forwarded applications to MOFCOM; MOFCOM allocated certificates to qualified applicants by 15 December 2025. Quota-holders then use the certificate (or winning-bid certificate) to obtain an export permit from Customs for each shipment.
This is a like-for-like renewal of an existing, decades-old quota list with quantities broadly stable year-on-year — it is not a new restriction, a tightening, or a strategic-minerals lever. The goods involved (herbal/medicinal commodities, timber, and livestock supply earmarked for Hong Kong/Macao) are low-value, non-strategic trade lines with no read-through to critical-minerals or advanced- technology supply chains. Quantities are fully disclosed (quant basis) but the mechanism itself carries minimal market-moving weight; it is filed for register completeness and as a baseline against which any future in-year tightening (e.g. a quota cut or suspension) would be filed as an amendment.
and chicken quotas are the primary formal channel for Mainland livestock exports into the HK/Macao retail and wet-market supply chain; any future reduction would be a food-security-relevant signal for those markets specifically.
traditional-medicine and confectionery/flavouring buyers (licorice is a widely used food-flavour and TCM input) source under the bid-allocated quota; ephedra buyers are pharmaceutical and TCM manufacturers.
in scale from recent years; unlikely to be a binding constraint on regional timber trade.
the seven quota lines materially under-subscribed or oversubscribed relative to the announced totals (not disclosed in the announcement itself).
separately per the notice) introduce any new eligibility conditions relative to the 2025 cycle.