The Doha Round Of Negotiations On Agriculture And The Choice Of Agricultural Subsidy Policy In China

Agriculture is closely linked with food security,people’s livelihood and economic development.It also undertakes the function of providing society with the most basic consumer products.Agriculture is still the main source of income for many developing countries.Therefore,agricultural subsidies become the most important and commonly used policy instruments in the system of government support and protection in a country.The main purpose is to protect the food security of the country,maintain the price stability of agricultural products and ensure the income of farmers.It is precisely because of the important position of agriculture that even in a complex international environment,even the World Trade Organization(WTO),which has always advocated free trade,has formulated special rules for the support and protection of agriculture.Since the Uruguay Round of negotiations in 1986 was included in the effective multilateral trade negotiations,the agriculture issue has signed the Uruguay Round“Agreement on Agriculture” among the major countries and regions in the world.It is also the first international rule on trade in agricultural products in the world.However,since the signing of the “Agreement on Agriculture”,the progress of the Doha Round agricultural negotiations has been relatively slow and member countries have diverged greatly on agricultural issues,which has also become a major factor impeding the Doha Round negotiation process.Despite the slow pace of agricultural negotiations in the WTO,agricultural negotiations have always been at the center of WTO negotiations.At present,the developed countries,developing countries and underdeveloped countries have diversified forms of subsidies in the field of agriculture.They can not only safeguard food security without causing trade distortions,but also maintain the basic agricultural incomes and utilize their comparative advantages in agriculture.The changes of agricultural rules under the multilateral trade system will inevitably have an important impact on the agricultural production in China.It is particularly important to strengthen and perfect China’s agricultural subsidy system.This paper mainly studies the future development of Doha Round agricultural negotiations in agriculture and the reduction of domestic agricultural import tariffs simulation analysis.This paper also analyzes China’s Doha Round negotiations on agricultural negotiation strategy,combined with the specific agricultural development in China National conditions and production status,put forward China’s agricultural subsidy policy reform proposals.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:In the Doha Round agricultural negotiation,due to the divergence in the reduction of import tariffs on agricultural products,it is very difficult for developing countries to set their hopes on the drastic reduction of domestic import tariffs by developed countries in order to gain access to agricultural markets in developed countries.In order to verify the effect of agricultural subsidies,this paper uses the WWZ value-added decomposition method to decompose the bilateral agricultural exports of43 countries(regions)through the cross-country input-output table to calculate the actual profits of a country participating in global agricultural production.On this basis,the econometric model of export subsidies and agricultural added value is constructed.The empirical results show that agricultural subsidies increase the domestic added value of agricultural exports in one country and promote the increase of the share of exports and domestic added value.Agricultural subsidies can be divided into producer support,general service support and consumer support in three parts.Empirical tests on the three types of subsidies found that producer support played a more important role in promoting agricultural production in a country than general service support,while consumer support had no significant impact on domestic value added.However,the policy choices of governments in various countries are close to the empirical results in reality.Considering the heterogeneity of the country,we introduce whether the developed countries interact in the regression and test the partial effect of agricultural subsidies in developed countries.Measurement results show that agricultural subsidies in developing countries have a greater impact on exports.It can be seen that agricultural subsidies play an important role in promoting a country’s actual gains in the global division of agricultural production.Removing export subsidies has little effect on China’s food security strategy,but it has a certain impact on grain exporters.In the follow-up negotiations,China should actively participate in the fight for a favorable bargaining position in the public grain reserves,special trade arrangements for developing countries and safety of agriculture in China.Opening up the development itself is a double-edged sword.We must have the correct opening strategy and effective measures to ensure that we can make a profit and avoid disadvantages in the process of opening up.On one hand,it is necessary to speed up the opening up to agriculture,make full use of foreign land resources to meet our growing food demand,and firmly ensure the sound development of public reserves with the goal of food security.Therefore,in the Doha round negotiations,we must not only adhere to the opening direction of the agricultural products market,but also adhere to the implementation of public reserves for the purpose of food security.We should not only lower the subsidy level of existing agricultural products,but also insist that the developed countries further open their own agricultural product markets,reduce the total amount of huge agricultural subsidies and the distorting effect on world agricultural trade.