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Accession To The Wto Agricultural Trade Policy Research

Posted on:2002-04-22Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:D G SunFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360065950402Subject:Agricultural economic management
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The bilateral agreements between China and the United States, China and Europe marked the decisive paces of China to enter into the WTO. Now, China's accession to the WTO is close at hand. However, the current situation of Chinese agriculture is that, on one hand, the government has been discriminating against agriculture in the long course of industrialization. Until now agriculture is still under negative protection so far; on the other hand, high-level trade protection has been adopted on agriculture mainly through tariff and non-tariff measures such as quota etc., and bulk commodity trades are still controlled by state trading monopoly. Thus, after joining the WTO, the cutting down of the tariff and the elimination of the non-tariff trade barriers will make this system face enormous challenges. Some current domestic agricultural policies, which are not in accordance with the WTO, also need to be adjusted. For example, one of the important means of supporting the agriculture adopted by the government-trie price supporting policy will be restricted strictly. So, it seems particularly important to rearrange the domestic agriculture supporting and agricultural product trade policies according to the regulations of the WTO agricultural agreements, to abate the impact of entering the WTO on the agricultural producers, and to realize the sustainable and sound development of Chinese agriculture.This article starts with the basic principles of the WTO and the evolution of the agricultural product trade policies in the world trade system. On the basis of explaining the current situation of the agriculture and the agricultural product trade in China, the article makes a concrete analysis on some focal and hot points of the WTO negotiation, such as the tariff, market access, domestic support, export subsidies, technical barriers to trade, genetic modified organisms (GMOs) and state trading enterprises, etc. The main conclusions are as follows.From a general point, compared with the rules of Uruguay Round agricultural agreement, the WTO accession terms of agriculture are really rigorous for China as a developing country. Looking singly from the tariffs, the term of China's accession is much stricter than developing countries as general. The tariffs cutting down in the Uruguay Round means not the real tariffs, but bound tariffs, namely the highest tariffs stipulated in the tariff schedule. So, after the implementation of the Uruguay agreements, the reduction of the real tariff in most countries are very limited. Member countries continue reserving the right to adjust the real tariff under the bound tariffs, retain a lot of tariff peaks at the same time. Some specific product tariffs of Japan are even above 2000%. By contrast, after joining the WTO, the real tariff of our country will be cut down from 21.2% to 17%, and that is the bound tariff. This level is not merely lower than the world average bound tariff of 62% in 2000, but also lower than European Unions' 30% and Japans' 58% respectively. Compared with the bound tariffs of most developing countries that are generally above 80%, it is even lower. Since the disparity between the bound tariff and the real tariff is very small, our country will not be able to protect the domestic production through variable tariffs inthe future.As to the problem of tariff rate quota, this article thinks that if all quotas are filled, the government will unable to realize its goal of 95% grain self-sufficiency. However, through the compare of international grain prices with those of domestic market, we find that except the obvious disadvantages of the corn, the future import of wheat and rice will mainly depend upon the domestic demand for the foreign varieties of high quality and high price. The price compare does not have outstanding meaning. At the same time our country can import more unprocessed grains and the goods that are seriously in short to protect domestic producers through state trading enterprises.As for the question of domestic subsidies, the articl...
Keywords/Search Tags:Agricultural
PDF Full Text Request
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