Saudi Arabia: Agricultural Biotechnology Annual
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Saudi Arabia currently adopts biotech regulations issued by the Gulf Standardization Organization (GSO) in 2011for imported food and agricultural products. The GSO regulations call for biotech labeling, if the biotech contents in the processed or unprocessed agricultural products exceeds one percent. Prior to adopting the GSO regulations, Saudi Arabia was implementing its own regulations for labeling food and animal feed as biotech products if they tested positive for having more than 0.9 percent biotech content. Although the GSO biotech regulations allow the importation of biotech planting seeds, no Saudi companies have shown interest in importing biotech seeds. Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and is reportedly ready to sign the Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.