Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
First, the volume of the tariff quota for all grains increased from 14.5
mllon tonnes upon Chna's entry nto the WTO to 22.2 mllon tonnes
by 2004. China's imports of grain in 1995 were 20.81 million tonnes, only
fractonally less than the peak level of the quota (Chna Statstcal Yearbook
1996:592). These imports did no harm to China's food security; therefore,
t does not appear convncng to argue that slghtly hgher mports wll
damage Chna's food securty.
Second, the White Paper on grain security published by the Chinese
Government in 1996 set 95 per cent of grain self-sufficiency as a reference
line for assuring the objective of grain security for China. In principle, the
desirable level of grain self-sufficiency for China may depend upon many
changing factors in future, such as the level of food consumption, the
international environment, and China's foreign exchange payment ability.
It s arguable that Chna's food securty objectve may be consstent wth
a 90 per cent or even lower grain self-sufficiency to allow a larger role to
be played by the international market. However, even with this official
guideline that is cautious and conservative in nature, the tariff quota for
gran may not exceed the upper lmt of gran mport ratos. Chna's total
consumpton of gran n recent years s about 500 mllon tonnes. As total
grain consumption is likely to increase, a 22 million tonnes grain quota
would be less than 4.4 per cent of total gran consumpton by 2004. Takng
into account other factors such as imports of other grains except corn,
wheat and rice, imports are unlikely to exceed the 5 per cent of total grain
consumption by a significant margin.
Third, the above discussion is based on the assumption that imports of
grain will reach the quota level. However this assumption is quite uncertain.
The tarff quota for grans n the package of market access arrangements for
Chna's WTO accesson only represents the mport opportunty for foregners
not China's import obligations. How much grain will be imported during the
perod from the year of Chna's entry nto WTO to 2004 wll depend upon
the relatve prce for the dfferent grans between the Chnese domestc
market and the nternatonal market. Although Chna's gran mports are
lkely to ncrease as grans are generally land-ntensve products n whch
China lacks comparative advantage, it is also quite possible that future
imports of grain will be significantly lower than the quota. If grain imports
