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China hands
out farm quotas to private firms
SHANGHAI - China has issued the bulk of private firms'
low-duty farm import quotas, including those for corn, wheat
and edible oils, as part of its commitments to the WTO,
traders said on Friday.
"We heard that the bulk of import quotas going to private
firms has been issued yesterday for edible oils including palm
oil," said a trader with a state-owned firm in Beijing.
China's State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) had also
issued low-duty quotas, called tariff-rate-quotas (TRQs), for
wheat and corn, a trader with another state-owned firm said.
China had issued all of the wheat import quotas slated for
private firms, which were allocated 10 percent - or about
850,000 tonnes - of total TRQs, traders said.
They added that China had issued a huge portion of TRQs
allocated to private firms for corn and edible oils, but they
were unaware of the exact amounts.
The TRQs were originally scheduled to be handed out on March
5, but were delayed because the government got swamped by huge
piles of applications from across the country.
China joined the World Trade Organisation on December 11 and
has promised to allow imports of a slew of farm products,
including up to 8.5 million tonnes of wheat, 5.9 million
tonnes of corn and 2.4 million tonnes of palm oil.-Reuters
courtesy Daily Business
recorder , 6
April, 2002
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Pakissan.com;
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