Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
11
China's agricultural trade
following its WTO accession
Chunlai Chen
Since its entry into the WTO in December 2001, China's economy has grown
rapdly. The average annual growth rate of Chna's real GDP was more than
9.8 per cent during 2002-05.
1
Chna's foregn trade has been expandng even
more rapdly than ts economc growth. The total value of Chna's foregn
trade has increased from US$457 billion in 2001 to US$1263 billion in 2005—an
annual growth rate of 28.6 per cent, as compared with 9.4 per cent during
the 1990s.
2
Undoubtedly, China's economy has benefited from its more open
nternatonal trade regme resultng from accesson to the WTO.
3
The mpact of Chna's entry nto the WTO on ts agrcultural sector
has been the major concern of the Chnese government and has been the
hottest topc among polcy makers and academcs n and outsde Chna (for
example, Anderson 1997; Cheng 1997; Development Research Centre 1998;
Huang 1998; Huang and Chen 1999; Wang 1997). In general, experts argued
that based on China's resource endowments and comparative advantage,
after entry nto the WTO Chna's land-ntensve farmng sector would shrnk
but its labour-intensive horticultural sector, its animal husbandry sector
and its processed agricultural product sector would expand. As a result,
China would import more land-intensive agricultural products, such as
grains and vegetable oils, and export more labour-intensive agricultural
products, such as vegetables and fruits, animal products and processed
agrcultural products.
