Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.2 reports TRQs for five bulk agricultural products that are
regarded as sensitive by China. For example, cotton will have an annual
import quota of 734,000 tonnes upon China's WTO accession with an in-
quota duty of 1 per cent. The cotton quota will increase to 894,000 tonnes
over the transton perod of mplementaton that ends by 2004. To ensure
the state monopolstc power n cotton tradng wll not be used to mpede
commercial imports of cotton after China's WTO accession, 67 per cent of
the quota will be allocated to non-state enterprises. It is further specified
that if the TRQ share reserved for importation by a state trading company
is not contracted for by October of any given year, it will be reallocated
to non-state tradng enttes.
Due to food security considerations, wheat, rice and corn are subject to
TRQ regulation. The total quota for grain will increase from 14.47 million
tonnes upon WTO accesson to 22.16 mllon tonnes by 2004. The n-quota
duty for pure gran s 1 per cent and for processed gran products may be
higher than 1 per cent but not exceed 10 per cent. Market shares for grain
mports wll be assgned to non-state enterprses.
Reducton of market dstorton measures
Chna also made commtments to reduce market dstortons n both
domestc dstrbuton and the foregn trade of varous agrcultural products
and nputs.
First, China has, in principle, committed to allow foreign companies to
have full trading rights, including rights in retail, wholesale, warehousing and
transportaton. These measures mply that the tradtonal state monopoles n
foregn trade and domestc dstrbuton for some agrcultural products wll be
reformed. Chna agrees that any entty wll be able to mport most products
nto any part of Chna. Ths commtment s to be phased n over a three-year
perod wth all enttes beng permtted to mport and export at the end of
the perod. Chna wll permt foregn enterprses to engage n the full range
of distribution services for chemical fertilisers after a five-year transition
perod. Chna wll gradually reform the long entrenched state monopoly n
gran and other bulk agrcultural products. Non-state enterprses wll take
different market shares in sensitive bulk agricultural products Table 3.2).
