BIZCHINA / Agriculture
WTO Commitments
Updated: 2006-04-18 11:31
Agricultural Industry's WTO Commitments
Agriculture's relevant commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
involve the following aspects:
1. To abolish the non-tariff measures and convert them into tariffs
After China's accession to the WTO, non-tariff measures should be
abolished and only tariff measures will be permitted in the
administration of agricultural imports. According to the Protocol of
Agriculture, the conversion should use the 1986-1988 period as the
calculation base. China has set down the principle of equivalent
conversion during negotiations with other WTO members.
2. Tariff concessions and restrictions
The agricultural agreement between China and the United States became the
main foundation of China's tariff-concession commitments in agriculture
to the WTO. According to the Sino-US agreement of tariff concessions,
China will reduce its agricultural tariffs step-by-step and restrict all
of its agricultural product tariffs during the five-year transitional
period from 1999 to 2004.
By the year 2004, the average tariff level of China's agricultural
products will be reduced from the present 21.2 percent to 17 percent,
falling 20 percent. As for the specific products, tariffs on wine will be
reduced from 65 percent to 20 percent; cheese, from 65 percent to 12
percent and beef and fruit, from 30-45 percent to 10-12 percent. The
tariff rate for soybeans will be restricted at 3 percent and barley, at 9
percent.
Tariff quotas will be used in the administration of wheat, corn, rice,
cotton and wool imports, with low tariffs applied to imports under quotas
and high tariffs for imports beyond quotas.
3. Tariff quotas will be implemented for the important products, and the
quota volume will increase
China has committed itself to abolish non-tariff measures as soon as it
enters the WTO; the administration of tariff quotas will come into force
without affecting China's market access for WTO members. During the
course of negotiations, China was given the chance to enforce the
administration of tariff quotas on essential products, such as wheat,
rice, corn, cotton, bean oil, sugar, etc.
The deadline to stop enforcing the administration of tariff quotas on
wheat, rice, corn, cotton and sugar is 2004;
The deadline to stop enforcing the administration of tariff quotas on
bean oil, palm oil and rap oil is 2005;
The import quotas committed by China for wheat, corn, rice, sugar and
cotton in 2002 were 8.468 million, 5.85 million, 3.99 million, 1.764
million and 0.8185 million tons.
By 2004, the above quotas will increase to 9.636 million, 7.2 million,
5.32 million, 1.945 million and 0.894 million tons.
The committed importing quotas for bean oil, palm oil and rap oil in 2002
were 2.518 million, 2.4 million and 0.8789 million tons, which will
increase to 3.5871 million, 3.168 million and 1.243 million tons in 2005.
The in-quota tariffs for wheat and corn range between1-10 percent and the
beyond-quota tariffs are 65 to 71 percent. The in-quota tariffs for rice
range between 1 to 9 percent and their beyond-quota tariffs range between
65 to 71 percent.
The in-quota tariffs for sugar will be reduced from 20 to 15 percent and
its beyond-quota tariffs will fall from 60.4 to 50 percent.
The in-quota tariffs for cotton is 1 percent and its beyond-quota tariffs
will be reduced from 54.4 to 40 percent.
The in-quota tariffs for bean oil, palm oil and rap oil are 9 percent
without exception, and their beyond-quota tariffs will drop from 52.4 to
19.9 percent.
During the course of negotiations, China and the US reached a compromise
regarding the allocation of importing quotas as follows:
By 2004, the state's trading proportion of wheat will be 90 percent and
that of corn will be reduced from 68 to 60 percent. The state's trading
proportion of rice will be 50 percent, while the proportions of sugar and
cotton will be 70 and 33 percent respectively.
By 2005, the state's trading proportion of bean oil, palm oil and rap oil
will be reduced from 34 to 10 percent, and ultimately reach 0 in 2006.
4. Supporting measures and export subsidy for agriculture
Domestic support for agricultural products:
According to the Agriculture Protocol of the WTO, developing members
without domestic AMS concession commitments should make sure its policy
support falling into the extent of Yellow Box not higher than 10% of its
agricultural production output value. The Sino-US agriculture agreement
has set down the relevant ration at 8.5 percent lower than the expected
level for developing countries.
Export subsidy: At the fifth working party on China's accession to the
WTO, the Chinese delegations declared to abolish the export subsidy for
agricultural products while continuing to reduce tariffs and removing
non-tariff barriers.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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