New trend of Agricultural products Trade in China

After China's accession to the WTO, China has become the most open and fastest-growing country in the agricultural market in the world, so today's food and food safety issues are particularly important.

In 2015, the national food security strategy made appropriate adjustments and established a moderate import policy, but on the premise of two guarantees-ensuring basic self-sufficiency in grain and ensuring the absolute safety of food rations. Under the premise of these two guarantees, other things can be discussed, but it does not mean that they can be discussed without conditions.

The strategic adjustment of food security stems from the new development.

Over the past 15 years, China has imported a large amount of grain, mainly soybeans, and the trade deficit of China's agricultural products has reached nearly 40 billion US dollars, which is a major market opportunity for the world. Although the national grain production has simultaneously achieved 11 consecutive increases, and the proportion of the added value of the primary industry has reached 20.7%, the most important opportunity now is not the production opportunity, but the market opportunity.

Although global warming poses more challenges than opportunities for the world, domestic and foreign food supplies are generally adequate at present and for some time to come.

Sixty-eight percent of China's arable land is inland. Global warming brings an increase in diseases and insect pests and an increase in extreme weather, but it also has benefits, such as increased rainfall. Very significant are the northeast and northwest regions where rainfall has increased significantly in recent years. One reason is the contribution of science and technology, and the other is the advantages brought about by climate change. So we have to look at things dialectically.

Another remarkable feature of agricultural production is the massive application of science and technology and the improvement of agricultural production conditions in developing countries. For example, the improvement of production conditions in Southeast Asia and the improvement of rice production efficiency. In addition, as a result of the joint efforts of international organizations and the Chinese Government to carry out "South-South cooperation", Africa's actual production capacity has been greatly increased. The relevant agencies predict that there may be more in the future.

In the case of sufficient global food, it will also keep China's food gap above the warning line for a long time. Apart from corn, China also has a high self-sufficiency rate of the other two major grains. From 1957 to 2014, the world food price index declined as a whole. This is the result of scientific and technological progress and management innovation of all mankind, the result of international organizations helping developing countries, and the result of cooperation between China and other big developing countries, such as India and Brazil.

The ability to deal with risk is the most important.

During the 13th five-year Plan period, China will continue to strengthen agricultural modernization. The Fifth Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed to "vigorously promote the pace of agricultural modernization", which will further consolidate the foundation of agricultural trade. Of course, the improvement of the level of modernization also includes the improvement of agricultural production capacity and the ability to deal with risks. In a country as big as China, agriculture cannot be risk-free, so the ability to deal with risks is the most important.

One of the challenges is to find a good trade balance. China's agricultural development has entered a new normal, with both challenges and opportunities. The price gap already exists, and excessive import pressure always exists. Merchants are sure to choose products of high quality and low price when doing trade. However, as the government, especially the central government, we must take into account the interests of trade, consumers and farmers. It is necessary to find a balance, although it is not easy to find.

The second challenge is the weak growth of agricultural exports. China's vegetables and fruits used to have advantages in exporting in the world, but in 2015, there was a deficit in fruit trade, and the advantage of vegetable trade surplus was also declining. China seems to have a large population, but now the Lewis inflection point has emerged. The Fifth Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee liberalized family planning, and the so-called national policy of family planning has not changed, but the speed and intensity of relaxation have been increased a bit. Because China is facing tremendous pressure from a significant rise in production costs, especially a sharp rise in labor costs.

Another is that China's agricultural production is becoming more and more difficult. At the time of China's accession to the WTO, the requirements for agriculture are relatively stringent, especially the developed economies of the European Union and the United States have very high requirements on us, which has a strong restraining effect on us. Now, we can't adjust even if we have the money, let alone we don't have it. Therefore, the limitations of the policy have become apparent.

New opportunity

In the face of many challenges, I am optimistic that China needs to continue to promote opening up to the outside world. In a country as big as China, we cannot work behind closed doors in agriculture as we did in the past, but must cooperate and open up with the developed agricultural countries in the world, such as the United States, Australia, Brazil, and so on. Therefore, opening up is inevitable. China also needs to change its mode of development and attach importance to the endogenous driving force of structural adjustment. The pressure of external structural adjustment is increasing, and the endogenous driving force is also increasing, and the whole society is aware from top to bottom that agriculture must change its mode of development. Coupled with the increasingly severe environmental pressure, the costly development is not sustainable, so we should rely on endogenous power to develop agriculture. The executive power of the Chinese government is still very strong, and it is believed that in a few years, the results of agricultural transformation and restructuring will be fully reflected.

At the same time, we hope that China will have large local seed enterprises. Such a large market in China is bound to produce large-scale seed companies to be expected.

In addition, China's agricultural going out will accelerate, whether it is the central government, enterprises, or society, the integration with international production capacity will increase. In 2014, China achieved a basic balance between the introduction of foreign investment and foreign investment for the first time. With the passage of time, China's capital export and technology export are inevitable.

In view of the above opportunities and challenges, we must implement the following three measures: the first is to achieve green and sustainable development; the second is to achieve shared development to improve the competitiveness of agriculture; and the third is to continue to open up and improve the quality of opening up. China cannot always be a processing place for incoming materials, but must be a research and development center for technology-and capital-intensive products.

According to the requirements of the Fifth Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, China must promote innovation and development. It is not only technological innovation, but also system innovation, market innovation and format innovation. "Singles Day" is a festival created by China. It is not only very hot in China, but also very hot in Vietnam, Africa and Latin America. With the innovation, coordination, sharing and openness of the business format, the world will become a real global village. By 2050, the new 2 billion people in the world will certainly not mainly come from China, but China has the obligation and responsibility to work with the international community to ensure food and food security, farmers' food security and income growth.