China's Ministry of Commerce has greenlighted the takeover of Swiss agrochemicals producer Syngenta by ChemChina, as expected. The two companies said the approval, which comes without any strings attached, “represents a further step towards the closing of the transaction, which is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2017.”

The only regulatory approval still outstanding is from India after the US and EU competition authorities gave conditional approval last week, followed by Mexico's anti-trust commission this week. India has not commented on the Syngenta-ChemChina deal. It did, however, express concern about the $130 billion link-up of Dow Chemical and DuPont, which it said “is likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition."