On September 6, 2016, the World Data Centre for Microorganisms and the Microbial Resources and Big Data Centre of the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, released the China Microbial Resources Development Report 2016. The report found substantial progress in China's microbial-resource sector between 2001 and 2015. China ranked second after the United States in research publications and first in patent families in this field. It had also become the country publishing the most microbial patent families in 2009.
According to the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms, China had 33 culture collections holding 182,235 publicly available strains, the fourth-largest total in the world. Culture collections worldwide held 96,907 biological materials deposited for patent procedures. The China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center held 11,977 such patent strains, ranking second worldwide.
The World Data Centre for Microorganisms marked its 50th anniversary in 2016. Its international database contained information on 2.5 million microbial strains from 710 culture collections in 72 countries.
Source: http://www.iprchn.com/Index_NewsContent.aspx?newsId=95412