How China’s WTO accession affects rural economy in the less-developed regions | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
January 2002
ISBN / Resource ID: 
62838
Pages: 
36 pages
Copyright details: 
IFPRI adheres to the basic tenets of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, articulated in 2002 (subject to any applicable third-party rights and or confidentiality obigations). All applicable data are subject to IFPRI’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines. Copyright © 2013 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). All rights reserved.

This study constructs a regional CGE model of China to analyze the differential regional impacts of China’s WTO accession on agricultural production, trade, and farmers’ income. The results show that China’s WTO accession will generally improve the total welfare but will widen existing gaps among regions and sectors. It is expected that the agricultural sector will suffer if only agricultural trade is liberalized, as cheap imports of agricultural products, particularly grains, will increase and domestic agricultural production and farmers’ agricultural income will decline. Full trade liberalization, i.e., lifting trade barriers in both agriculture and non-agriculture will benefit farmers and agriculture at the national level. However, the increase in rural income is still smaller than the increase in urban income, which implies that the rural- urban income gap may be further widened. Furthermore, among the regions, the less-developed rural areas will benefit little or even suffer because their major production activities and income sources are still from agriculture, especially from traditional agricultural activities such as grain production.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Diao, Xinshen
Zhang, Xiaobo
Fan, Shenggen

Publisher(s): 

About IFPRI


The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 500 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of theCGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.


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About IFPRI


The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 500 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of theCGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.


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