The Study On World Barley Trade Pattern And Its Influence On Chinese Barley Industry

As one of the major crops in the world, barley is wildly planted in many countries due to its multifunction for mankind and animal as well as to its great adaption to lean soil and arid regions. As a major consumer of the world barely, China imports a lot each year. With globalization of agro-product trade and the Chinese increasing reliability on the international market, impact of external condition become obvious on barley industry in the country.Based on the relationship between the global trade pattern and the Chinese industrial development of barley, researches were done in terms of world import&export market, prices determination and pricing power, supply&demand equilibrium, import influence on industry as well as existing policies. With combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, the number of economic metrology approaches were used in pricing power of major import and export countries, large country effect, influence of future prices and dependence degree on import, whereby recommendations were made on prompting the sustainable and sound growth of Chinese barley industry through overall planning and creating sound and systemic policy system.Over recent two decades, the development of agricultural science and technologies facilitates the continuous improvement of barley yield in world-wild view, while the total planting area and trade growth rate of barley declined due to the booming demand for soybean and corn. Furthermore, the trade flows of barley are more concentrated on certain regions where the Europe has become the main export one and the developing countries in Asia and South America are being the major importers. Ukraine, France, Russia, Australia, Canada etc. grow out as key exporters of barley but Saudi Arabia, China, Japan etc. turn primary importers.Barley production is mainly concentrated on east China as well as northeast and northwest China. Since the reform and opening-up policy came into effect, the barley produced in the country could no longer meet the growing demand with the fast development of beer industry and other processing industries. In addition, the policy encouraging development of food crops in China has further suppressed the cultivation of barley in recent years, leading to its rapid growth of import. At present, China’s total imports of barley rank second in the world, while malting barley imports rank first globally. Huge consumer demand and imports have a great impact on the domestic barley markets and industry.Influenced by a variety of factors such as inflation, change of supply and demand, production and transport costs, the world barley trade price showed an overall rising trend in fluctuations over past two decades. Changes in the international barley price have a great impact on the domestic barley price, and China’s barley prices also perform an overall unsteady rise. From1991to2010, except for the sudden rise and fall of international barley prices due to the food crisis in2008, China’s barley import prices are very similar to domestic barley prices in the volatility trend. With a large import of barley, China is still a in weak position of pricing power in barley trade. In addition, there is a positive correlation between the international barley futures market price and the domestic barley wholesale price. In view of the domestic supply and demand, dependence on large import couldn’t be changed for keeping balance of supply and demand in China for a quite long time. In the past two decades, the basic barley exporters to China indicate changes in a stable trend. In a comprehensive analysis by CRn, Hhi and Gini-coefficient, China’s barley market has a high degree of import centralization. Furthermore, the dependence degree on import is also very high and it is affected by changes of tariff duty since China joined WTO and domestic beer production etc. In general, imported barley could cut both ways in for the development of Chinese barley industry, and it depends on how to reduce the import risks and promote the healthy development of domestic barley industry.At present, there is still lack of favorable policy to support barley production in the country. Compared with other food crops, barley is at a disadvantage position in terms of policy support. The sustainable healthy development of domestic industry of barley, as an important crop in marginal and western regions and important raw material to the beer industry, is essential.To this end, this article, based on using barley policies of relevant countries for reference, states that Chinese government should formulate a set of sound, reasonable and long-term barley support policies. Policy makers must give full consideration to the promotion and development needs of the domestic industry and pay attention to the rational use of international barley markets while promoting domestic barley production to meet the needs of China’s barley industrial development, in order to maximize the benefits of the overall domestic barley industrial development.This article suggests a set of basic guidelines in barley policy-making. First, it should specify the use of barley, set a target, and incorporate barley into the system of agricultural subsidies as early as possible; second, it is to strengthen trade support and guidance, make full use of our limited trade policies, encourage import diversification, and improve import control efforts; third, it has to pay attention to industrial development, and give consideration to the integration needs in the whole barley industrial chain. Finally, this article has put forward specific recommendations and measures from barley production and distribution, trade and industrial development based on the above comprehensive analysis.