Zhu Rongji: two measures can cushion the impact of China's entry into WTO on agricultural products

Introduction: Premier Zhu Rongji recently disclosed some details of the dialogue with US President George W Bush at breakfast during his visit to China when he talked about how China's agriculture should cope with the challenges of entering WTO He pointed out that China could buffer the impact of China's accession to the WTO on its agricultural product market through quota protection and grain monopoly In response to the doubt that foreign agricultural products will impact China's market with low prices and other advantages after China's accession to the WTO, Premier Zhu Rongji said that we can use WTO rules and take measures to limit the influx of foreign agricultural products There are two methods: 1 We set a total of 16 million tons of rice, wheat, soybean and corn as quotas Within five years, for the foreign agricultural products imported outside the scope of quota protection, the tariff will be doubled, so once the foreign agricultural products exceed 16 million tons, the tariff will be very high 2 Grain monopoly system We stipulate that only state-owned enterprises can manage grain This is mainly to ensure that the market management of food imports is not disordered Of course, I'm also worried that state-owned enterprises will not listen to you after they implement self financing The main problem is that grain in coastal areas has been completely liberalized The grain sector in coastal areas does not import grain from the central and western regions, but from the United States But I believe that our measures and systems can play a protective role The key is how we do our work For example, when American soybeans enter the Chinese market, although they employ many Chinese people to do things for them and understand the situation in China, we take measures to limit genetically modified agricultural products, and Americans panic "Last year, the U.S Secretary of state came to China mainly on the issue of soybeans This year, Bush also spent a lot of energy on the issue of soybeans when he visited China," he said When Bush and I had breakfast, we talked about soybeans at the beginning, and we spent most of our breakfast Because soybeans are the main cash crop in areas where Bush's voters are concentrated, Bush certainly hopes that we can give them convenience " According to Chinese Foreign Ministry officials attending the breakfast, Premier Zhu Rongji stressed to Bush on the same occasion after President Bush mentioned the issue of soybeans that the three supporting measures implemented by China on genetically modified food are fully in line with international practice At present, many countries, including European and Asian countries, have made regulations on genetically modified food labeling After citing the example of American soybeans, Premier Zhu Rongji said that when other people use this means to enter our market, we should not only formulate measures to protect ourselves, but also strengthen our study of WTO knowledge and rules to bring our products into their market He stressed that joining the WTO has advantages and disadvantages If we do our work well, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages; if we fail to do well, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages Now don't think it's a bad thing to enter WTO and bring about competition In fact, we haven't suffered any loss If you let others in, the tariff will have to be reduced If the tariff is high, how can others come in? But what's good for us is that bilateral tariffs have been lowered With MFN treatment, we can expand exports, especially we can use the five-year protection period to develop ourselves.