World Trade Organisation’s third review of China’s trade policies and practices and their impact on the functioning of the multilateral trading system charts China as the largest agricultural producer on the planet.
“China is the world’s top producer of agricultural products by value, with total production of about Y 4,078 billion (US$ 536 billion), says the WTO report.
“Despite rising value of production, the contribution of agriculture to GDP continued to decline, falling from 11.1% in 2006 to 10.7% in 2008 and 10.6% in 2009 because of even more rapid growth in other sectors of the economy,” the report adds.
The Chinese Government has been implementing agricultural reform to improve farmers’ welfare and mitigate rural-urban disparities, and more recently to stimulate domestic demand in the face of the global economic slowdown since late 2008, the report notes.