China issues farm import quotas to meet WTO code

China's powerful State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) has issued larger low-duty farm import quotas for 2003 to domestic trading companies, in line with the country's commitments for World Trade Organisation membership.

The SDPC said in a statement it had issued 8.652 million tonnes of wheat, tariff-rate quotas (TRQs), 6.325 million tonnes of corn, 2.253 million tonnes of long-grain rice and 1.529 million tonnes of short-grain rice to domestic trading firms.

It also specified quotas of 2.618 million tonnes of soyoil, 2.5 million tonnes of palm oil, 918,600 million tonnes of rapeseed oil, 1.152 million tonnes of sugar and 356,250 tonnes of cotton, according to the statement on www.sdpc.gov.cn.

China will also issue TRQs to Chinese processing firms, which turn farm produce into value-added products such as flour and edible oils, the SDPC said. The central government body is in charge of issuing agricultural import quotas.

The SDPC said 2003 quotas allocated for processing include 400,000 tonnes of wheat, 200,000 tonnes of corn, 75,000 tonnes of long-grain rice and 75,000 tonnes of short-grain rice.

It said 200,000 tonnes of soybean oil, 100,000 tonnes of palm oil, 100,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil, 700,000 tonnes of sugar and 500,000 tonnes of cotton would be given in quotas to processors this year.