Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
07
WTO accession and food
security in China
Tingsong Jiang
After 15 years of long and difficult negotiations, China was admitted to WTO
n November 2001. Chna made the most exceptonal accesson commtment
in the history of the WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on
Tariff and Trade (GATT). For example, China agreed to lower its average
statutory tariff on industrial products to 8.9 per cent, while the rates for
Argentina, Brazil, India and Indonesia were set as high as 30.9, 27.0, 32.4
and 30.9 per cent, respectively (Lardy 2002). For agricultural goods, China
has agreed to have no agricultural export subsidies, and to limit its domestic
support to farmers to 8.5 per cent of the production value, while other
developng countres were allowed to have domestc support at a level of
10 per cent of producton value.
Because of the expectaton of possble compromse n the agrcultural
commitments and the comparative disadvantage of land intensive products,
the adverse mpact on agrculture of WTO accesson caused great concern
for Chnese polcymakers and academcs leadng up to the accesson. These
concerns were all based on the predcton that the agrcultural sector would
be one of the most hard ht sectors and have been focused on two ssues:
food securty and farmer ncomes.
According to the World Food Summit, food security exists when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutrtous food to meet ther detary needs and food preferences for
an actve and healthy lfe. It means achevng four major components
 
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