China's bulk agricultural products are entering the "era of net imports"

From 2013-06-27 《 economic reference newspaper

the tariff threshold is too low

the summer grain harvest is coming to an end and another bumper harvest is expected. However, bulk agricultural products, including grain, have maintained a net import trend since the beginning of this year, and domestic agricultural production and food security are facing challenges.

A reporter from the Economic Information Daily learned from the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture that in recent years, while imports of soybeans, cotton, and vegetable oil have continued to remain high, and net imports of sugar and dairy products have increased significantly, all three major food crops have been net. import. Although the net import of grain, especially rice and wheat, is very limited, the trend of China's bulk agricultural products entering the net import stage is very obvious from the development and changes of more than 10 years.

Data show that in 2012, the net import of grain was 13.169 million tons, the net import of wheat, corn and rice reached 3.415 million tons, 5.153 million tons and 2.088 million tons respectively, and the import volume of sugar and cotton reached 3.747 million tons and 5.413 million tons respectively, reaching a new high. According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce this week, imported soybeans are forecast to arrive at 8.3228 million tons in June, the highest level in the month.

In addition, imports of meat products grew equally rapidly. Among them, pork changed from net export to net import in 2008, and the import volume increased rapidly; the trend of net import of mutton continued to strengthen, with the net import volume increasing from 24000 tons in 2007 to 119000 tons in 2012.

It is worth noting that rice imports continued to be at a high level this year. From January to April, rice and rice imports were 1 million tons, an increase of 83.6 percent over the same period last year. Ma Wenfeng, an analyst at Oriental Aige Agricultural Consulting Company, said that China is now the largest rice importer, with natural annual imports reaching 4 million to 5 million tons. The absolute amount of rice imports is not large, but it has a great impact on the local market in the south. Rice enterprises in Hunan and Jiangxi have suffered a serious impact.

"In the case of widening domestic and foreign price differentials and lack of tariff protection, it is impossible to import." Ni Hongxing, director of the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the fundamental reason for the increase in net imports of bulk agricultural products is driven by demand growth, and the widening price gap at home and abroad is the direct driving force for the increase in agricultural imports. At present, many agricultural imports are not due to domestic shortages, but to internal and external price differences, resulting in the coexistence of domestic backlogs and increased imports.

In an interview with a reporter from the Economic Information Daily in Changde, Hunan not long ago, a rice factory owner said that the price of imported rice from Vietnam, Pakistan, and Myanmar is 172 yuan per 100 catties, while the local price of rice in Changde is 180 per 100 catties. To 190 yuan, many companies even mix 20% of imported rice with local rice.

For the "high price difference" of cotton at home and abroad, many cotton textile enterprises also feel difficult to operate. Zhu Beina, president of the China Cotton Textile Industry Association, said that the current domestic cotton price exceeds 19000 yuan per ton, which is 4000 to 5000 yuan higher than imported cotton. Last year, the price difference reached 6000 yuan per ton. In this case, cotton textile enterprises are not competitive and the finished products cannot be digested.

In the face of the continuous impact of low-cost imported agricultural products, the tariff level implemented by China is difficult to play the role of "threshold" protection, and the policy space for tariff protection is already very limited. It is understood that at present, the average tariff level of agricultural products in the world is 62 per cent, and the highest tariff level can even reach more than 1000 per cent, while the average tariff level of agricultural products in China is 15.2 per cent, less than a quarter of the world average. Although China implements tariff quota management on important agricultural products such as wheat, corn, rice, sugar, cotton, wool, etc., the highest non-quota tariff is only 65%.

"The strong growth of my country's agricultural imports is not a problem in itself. The problem is the lack of sufficient tariffs and other policy measures to carry out effective regulation." Ni Hongxing believes that China's agricultural production is small in scale and high in cost, and it is an inevitable trend to widen the price gap at home and abroad, but the more open it is, the more tariff protection is needed. Taking soybeans as an example, the current dilemma facing the domestic soybean industry is not caused by the import itself in a strict sense, but by the lack of necessary tariff protection and import control policies. The tariff level on soybeans is only 3%, and the special safeguard mechanism cannot be used, which makes soybean imports almost unregulated.

The next concern will be corn. Ni Hongxing predicted that driven by labor costs and material costs, if the minimum purchase price of domestic corn rises by 10% every year, while the extra-quota tariff of corn is only 65%, it will be difficult to block the extra-quota import of corn in another five or six years.

Industry insiders are worried that the increase in net imports of bulk agricultural products, on the one hand, has formed a restraint on the domestic industry, resulting in the lack of necessary incentives and motivation for industrial development, on the other hand, it has brought potential risks to the long-term supply security of agricultural products. Although the country continues to raise the minimum purchase price of grain and other agricultural products, the effect of policy support is largely eliminated by low-cost imported agricultural products.

Ni Hongxing believes that from the perspective of resource allocation, the impact of individual products such as soybeans can be reduced by adjusting the structure and freeing up more resources for food production. However, in the context of the expansion of the scope of net imports of bulk agricultural products and the increase in net imports, there is limited room for agricultural structural adjustment, and imports have a wide range of suppression and suppression of agricultural prices, which will bring unprecedented challenges to the development of my country's agricultural industry.

(Responsible editor: Shixin)