China’s ten-month agchem output up 4%

China produced just over 3 million tonnes of agrochemicals in the first ten months of 2014, a 4% increase on the same period last year. Fungicide output saw the greatest growth, increasing 14.4% to 190,000 tonnes, with the largest category, herbicides, up 5.7% to 1.5 million tonnes. Insecticide output dropped 4.4% to 492,000 tonnes. China produced some 3.2 million tonnes of agrochemicals in 2013. Figures for the month of October show a similar trend, with insecticide output falling by 10% year-on-year to 47,000 tonnes, while fungicide manufacturing increased by 8.4% to 17,000 tonnes. The October data are based on 369 manufacturers “of a certain scale” collected by the National Bureau of Statistics and reported by the China Crop Protection Industry Association.