In widely-divergent patterns of regulation, non-regulation and murkiness in Asian regulations on GMOs, North Asia's trail blazers Japan and Korea are also the region's biggest customers for US foods, the world's most highly genetically engineered.
Between them the two Asian neighbors took US$11.3 billion worth of US agricultural products in calendar 1998, including US$3.6 billion of corn, soy and cotton, the key GMO crops.
But China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia as a whole, which together buy US$3.6 billion worth of US agricultural products, including US$1.1 billion worth of coarse grains, soy and cotton, are not rushing to label and strictly control GM foods.
"In time to come, consumers may probably push the government to implement some enforcement on labelling of the products," a Malaysian official said. "The level of awareness of GM food by consumers is not as high as [in] Europe."
"We don't have a long-term solution for the labelling issue yet. But for a stop-gap measure, we will issue a certificate for producers of GM-free products," said Ananta Dalodon, head of the Department of Agriculture at Thailand's ministry of agriculture.
"We prefer not to discuss the issue," a Chinese Foreign Ministry official told Reuters. Another said China's attitude to GM food was a "state secret".
Fledgling regulations are also full of holes. In Japan, food products in which DNA or protein resulting from gene alteration cannot be detected using current technologies are still exempt from the labelling requirement.
South Korea has not decided which products will be labelled. And Australia is yet to decide on thresholds of GM content which require labelling, as well as on enforcement procedures.
"I don't see us having the extreme emotional debate here [in Australia] that is in the UK," Monsanto's Brian Arnst said.
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