HONG KONG - Four years
after its accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO), China is striving to play an
active role in improving international trade rules
to protect its vulnerable agriculture, among other
sectors.
"We've set the target of building
a 'new socialist countryside', which aims to raise
the efficiency of agriculture and the income of
900 million farmers," said Chinese Vice-Minister
of Agriculture Niu
Dun
at the WTO's sixth Ministerial Conference, which
ended here on December 18.
The "new
countryside" policy, advocated by the ruling
Communist Party of China, is expected to activate
the country's rural market and speed up social and
economic development there, which lags far behind
the country's booming urban areas. "To do so, we
have to turn our eyes to the international market
[and] the process of globalization," Niu said.
China has fulfilled its commitments to the
international trade regime and witnessed soaring
trade in agricultural products, which hit US$51
billion in 2004, up 84% over 2001 when it joined
the WTO. China also cut its overall agricultural
tariffs from 54% to 15.3%; levels are expected to
drop further to 15.2% in 2006. In contrast, the
average agricultural tariff worldwide stands at
62%.
"Not a single member in the WTO
history has made such a huge cut in such a short
period of time, even the developed members," said
Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai, who was in
Hong Kong attending the
WTO conference.
However, Chinese
agriculture suffers from various disadvantages,
such as undersized farms, poor infrastructure, and
a lack of technology and investment, as well as
foreign subsidies and the unfair world trade
system, which has slowed down the growth of its
farmers' income.
Though Chinese
agricultural officials knew very well that the
country had made extensive promises to open its
market to the rest of the world, especially in the
agricultural sector, they were still shocked by
the first agricultural trade deficit in 2004,
which hit $5.5 billion. "Part of the deficit was
caused by foreign export subsidies, which lowered
the prices for agricultural products such as
grain, cotton and [soybeans]," said Cheng
Guoqiang, a research fellow with the State Council
Development and Research Center.
The
United States, the world's largest cotton
exporter, offered more than $3 billion of
subsidies for cotton exports in the most recent
year. Oxfam Group, a Hong Kong-based
non-governmental organization, has said that this
subsidy drove 720,000 Chinese cotton farmers out
of work. Meanwhile, the European Union's subsidies
for sugar exports reduced the per capita annual
income of Chinese sugar growers by 300 yuan
(US$37). The per capita income of Chinese farmers
was 2,900 yuan in 2004. Making matters worse,
Chinese exports of high-quality agricultural
products, including vegetables, aquatic and
livestock products, were kept out of many markets
by tariffs or non-tariff trade barriers.
"Chinese farmers will feel more pressure
on the international market, where agricultural
trade is distorted by subsidies or trade
barriers," Niu said, adding that this unfair
situation must be changed in the process of the
WTO trade talks. Niu said China will make the most
of the domestic support measures permitted by WTO
rules to improve the efficiency and competitive
edge of its agricultural sector.
