Spokesman Report
ISLAMABAD : Crop Life Pakistan Association has confirmed that none of its member companies have been identified for cancellation of registration by Federal Seed Certification & Registration Department (FSC&RD). The Association represents leading local and multinational crop science companies that are responsible for introducing cutting-edge agriculture technologies in the Country, whilst maintaining full compliance with the local laws and ethical business practices.
The clarification comes at the back of an FSC&RD letter that lists defunct legal entities, formerly operated by our member companies, amongst the 204 seed companies identified by FSC&RD for cancellation of registration. “Names on the list being associated with our member companies are of defunct legal entities, no longer used to carry out business in the Country”, explains Rashid Ahmed, Executive Director CropLife Pakistan. “Our member companies continue to be fully authorized and legally registered with FSC&RD to market their seed products across the whole of Pakistan”, he further added.
“The legal entities ‘Monsanto Pakistan Agri Tech (Pvt) Ltd’ (which was also listed in the FSC&RD letter) and ‘Bayer Crop Science Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd’, have been non-operational for almost ten years and have no legal existence after the transfer of business to a new legal entity representing the Country business. Following the global acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer AG, the present legal entity registered with FSC&RD, and representing the combined company in Pakistan going forward, is ‘Bayer Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd’”, Dr. Imran Ahmad Khan, CEO and Managing Director, Bayer Pakistan Pvt Ltd., explains. “Likewise, Syngenta also registered itself with current entity name and doing business in the market as ‘Syngenta Pakistan Limited’”, Tauseef ul Haq, Business Sustainability and CPD Head, Syngenta Pakistan Limited further added
FSC&RD is the main regulator at the Federal Government level, responsible for ensuring the availability of quality certified seed across the country, in line with the Seed Act and its subordinate Rules. As per the law, the registration of a seed company can be cancelled for various reasons, including failure to conduct business through the registered entity for three or more years. For seed companies going through mergers, acquisitions or rebranding, the process of deregistration of previously defunct legal entities is standard practice and does not impact existing registrations of active legal entities representing such businesses.