GMO Labeling Regulations in Malaysia (as at July 2011)

Introduction As of June 14, 2010, new regulations regarding the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food have been enacted in Malaysia through amendments to the Food Regulations under the Food Act 19831. These regulations are in accordance with provisions found in the Biosafety Act of Malaysia that require the identification and labeling of living modified organisms (LMOs)2, which itself has been enacted as part of Malaysias responsibilities as a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations3.

Background of the Malaysian GMO Labeling Regulations Malaysian signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) on May 24, 2000, and subsequently revised the Biosafety Bill being drafted at the time for it to be in compliance with the CPB. Under Section 2(a) Article 18 of the CPB, there are requirements that living modified organisms that are intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing, clearly identifies that they may contain living modified organisms and are not intended for intentional introduction into the environment. While specific details to implement this provision have not been finalized by the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (COP-MOP), the final draft of the Biosafety Bill, which was subsequently passed by the Malaysian Parliament as law in 2007, contained GMO labeling requirements under Section 61, which states that All living modified organisms, items containing living modified organisms and products of such organisms shall be clearly identified and labelled in a manner to be prescribed and the requirements for such identification and labelling shall be in addition to any other written law. However, the inclusion of this provision within the Biosafety Act had been highly contentious prior to its final enactment and subject to a significant amount of lobbying by those who were against its inclusion as well as those who were supportive. The issue of labeling of GMO products had been raised in Malaysia by international non-governmental organizations such as Consumers International (CI), as far back as in 2000 through its local affiliates, such as the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP)4. Conversely, it had been widely reported that the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in the United States had asked the US
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Ministry of Health, Malaysia 2010. Food (Amendment) Regulations 2010 P.U. (A) 228229. http://fsq.moh.gov.my/v2/uploads/Peraturan-Peraturan%20Makanan%20(Pindaan) %202010.pdf 2 Biosafety Act 2007, Malaysia. http://www.chm.frim.gov.my/biosafety-act2007.pdf
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Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations. http://bch.cbd.int/protocol/text/ 4 Netto, A. 2000. Malaysia: Consumer Groups Press of Labelling of GE Food. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=245

Trade Representative to apply pressure on the Malaysian government to remove the provision within the Biosafety Bill as part of bilateral discussions for a USMalaysia Free Trade Agreement in 20075. A number of non-governmental organizations however called upon the government to maintain such provisions, including the CAP, Friends of the Earth Malaysia (SAM) and Third World Network (TWN)6. These provisions were eventually maintained by the government of Malaysia in the Biosafety Act.

Specific Aspects of the Malaysian GMO Labeling Regulations The GMO labeling regulations in Malaysia make it mandatory for both products that are composed or contain GMOs, as well as those that are produced from but do not contain GMOs to be labeled on the front of the packaging in an appropriately visible manner on the label7 . Additionally, a unique feature of Malaysias GMO labeling regulations is that it requires the declaration of the origin of gene from which the modified gene in the product is derived from8. This is related to the need to meet religious dietary requirements of certain consumers in the country, particular for Muslims who are required to consume halal foods according to Islamic dietary law9. Based on the consensus of Islamic scholars that have deliberated on the topic of halal and GMOs, GMOs with genes derived from non-halal sources (for e.g. those derived from porcine DNA) are considered to be impermissible according to Islamic dietary law10 11.

How it Compares to GMO Labeling Regulations in Other Countries and International Standards The Malaysian GMO labeling regulations differ in some aspects with those of other countries, as highlighted by the review of such regulation by Guerre and Rao12. The most significant difference is the labeling requirements to declare the origin of gene, which is not a common feature in most other countries with mandatory GMO labeling requirements. In addition, the labeling regulations also do not mention any threshold for labeling, which is usually specified in many
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Third World Network Info Service on Free Trade Agreements, 13 June 2007. Malaysias GMO Labelling Stance and US Pressure. http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/FTAs/info.service/fta.info.service103.htm 6 Ibid. 7 Refer to Note 1. Regulation 11, Sub-regulation (7) the information shall appear on the principal display panel in close proximity of the name o the food and shall be in not less than 10 point lettering 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 World Halal Forum 2010. Genetically Modified (GM) Crops and Halal Workshop Report. 11 Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre, 2004. Biotechnology and Religion: Are they compatible? http://www.bic.org.my/BICnews/BICnews5.pdf 12 Guerre G. and Rao, S.R., 2007. A review of international labelling policies of genetically modified food to evaluate Indias proposed rule. AgBioForum, 10(1), 51-64. http://www.agbioforum.org/v10n1/v10n1a06-gruere.htm

other mandatory GMO labeling regimes (for e.g. 5% in Japan, 0.9% in the European Union). The GMO labeling regulation found in the Food (Amendment) Regulations 2010 follow existing Codex Alimentarius standards in referring to GMOs as products derived from modern biotechnology13. While Codex Alimentarius has not developed any specific GMO labeling standards, it has recently adopted a text on the Draft Compilation of Codex Texts Relevant to the Labelling of Foods Derived from Modern Biotechnology14. Among the texts listed are the Codex Guidelines for the Use of the Term Halal, which means that Malaysias GMO labeling regulations, including those that relate to religious dietary requirements, could be in line with Codex Alimentarius15. This is significant as it would likely imply that such regulations are legitimate under WTO law, and GMO-exporting countries, such as the US, Canada, Argentina and others would likely not be successful in challenging the regulation as a non-tariff trade barrier.

Benefits and Costs of GMO Labeling Regulations The objective of implementing mandatory GMO labeling is to provide consumers with additional information and increase consumer choice16. However, economic studies of mandatory GMO labeling schemes in other countries have thus far not revealed it has been successful in providing these benefits 17. Estimation of costs of GMO labeling vary according to certain criteria, such as threshold levels that trigger labeling, the capacity for industry to comply with the regulations, as well as the ability of public authorities in enforcing the regulations18. Exact figures for such costs range from US$3 to US$48 per person annually according to different studies in other countries19. Existing economic analyses have also only considered existing single trait GMO products available on the market, but have not yet taken into consideration GMO products containing multiple of stacked modified genes. Such products pose a significant challenge in the laboratory testing of GMOs, which is the commonly applied method of verifying the presence and quantity of GMOs in food and agricultural products. Thus far, the only method to quantify GMO content for stacked products is through single seed testing and the number of seeds
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Codex Alimentarius Commission, 2009. Foods derived from modern biotechnology, Second Edition. http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/a1554e/a1554e00.htm 14 The Globe and Mail, 06 July 2011. Voluntary guidelines to allow for labelling of worlds genetically modified foods. http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/voluntaryguidelines-to-allow-for-labelling-of-worlds-genetically-modified-foods/article2087743/? service=mobile 15 Codex Alimentarius, 2011. Report of the Thirty Ninth Session of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling, Quebec, Canada, 9-13 May 2011. http://www.codexalimentarius.net/download/report/765/REP11_FLe.pdf 16 Guerre and Rao, 2007. See note 12. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid.

needing to be tested would depend on the threshold for labeling (for e.g. a threshold of 5% would require the testing of 100 seeds to ensure accurate quantification of GMO content)20. The costs implications in relation to these stacked GMO products are thus significant in relation to GMO labeling requirements. Nevertheless, while economic analyses of the benefits and costs of mandatory labeling schemes in other countries may serve as an indicator, they would not however be an accurate representation of the Malaysian situation, given the unique features of the Malaysian GMO labeling regulations such as the lack of a threshold to trigger labeling and the requirements to include source of gene to meet religious requirements. It might be important to estimate consumer willingness-to-pay to estimate the potential benefits of the Malaysian GMO labeling regulations, as it may be significantly different in the Malaysian context due to the large number of Muslim consumers who are concerned about consuming halal foods there, including foods derived from GMOs. However, given that halal certification and labeling schemes in Malaysia are welldeveloped and widely applied, GMO labeling regulations that aim to inform Muslim consumers regarding the halal integrity of certain genetically modified foods may be overlapping and therefore redundant, as this need would already be satisfied by existing halal labeling. There may however be information gaps that such GMO labeling provisions would be able to provide, such as to inform the minority of non-Muslim consumers who may wish to avoid foods containing GMOs derived from bovine genes (for e.g. Hindu and some Buddhist consumers), provided that there are intentions to use such genes derived from animal sources in the future by GM technology providers, which is not currently the case. Lack of clarity in the implementation aspects of the GMO labeling regulation also means that it is not possible to have an accurate estimate of the costs at this time. These regulations are only expected to be enforced after a grace period of up to two years or more21. For example, as there is no labeling threshold mentioned, it has been suggested that submission of adequate product and ingredients related documentation to public authorities would suffice in determining whether it needs to be labeled as GMOs or not, which would potentially be less costly22; while if thresholds were to be eventually imposed and require laboratory testing, this would result in higher costs, especially in view that both products containing as well as derived from GMOs need to labeled in the Malaysian regulations, as well as due to new types GM products coming onto the market.
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Akiyama, H., Watanbae, T., Wakabayanshi, K., Nakade, S., Yasui, S., Sakata, K., Chiba R., Spiegelhalter, F., Hino, A. and Maitani, T., 2005. Quantitative Detection System for Maize Sample Containing Combined Trait Genetically Modified Maize. Analytical Chemistry, 77(22), pp 7421-7428. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac051236u 21 USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Global Agricultural Information Network, 2010. Malaysia: Biotechnology GE Plants and Animals, October 29, 2010. http://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Biotechnology%20-%20GE %20Plants%20and%20Animals_Kuala%20Lumpur_Malaysia_10-29-2010.pdf 22 Personal communication with a representative from the Malaysian food industry.

Conclusions Public authorities in Malaysia are currently considering how to implement the GMO labeling regulations and a number of stakeholder discussions, including those with the food industry, are expected to take place in the follow up to its eventual enforcement23. It would be important that consumer protection goals (i.e. to provide consumers with sufficient information to make informed choices labeling) are balanced with medium-to-long term economic considerations (i.e. in view of new GMO products coming onto the market, such as stacked products), in deciding how such implementation should take place. Furthermore, while Malaysia is not currently an agricultural biotechnology adopting country, it may wish to do so in the future as its government has identified biotechnology as a source of economic growth for the country, and has made the necessary investments in research and development as well as in developing a regulatory system to assess the potential risks of and approve products derived from GM technology. These considerations would also have to be taken into consideration when implementing the GMO labeling regulations.

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Malaysian Institute of Food Technologists (MIFT), 2011. Genetically Modified Foods Impact of the New Labelling Regulations. http://www.mift.org.my/files/BrochureSeminarcumAGM2011.pdf