By Ye Xingqing, Cheng Yu & Han Yang, Research Team on “Strategic Adjustment of Agriculture under the Background of High-Level Opening-up”, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report, No. 85, 2020 (Total 5829) 2020-4-23

Abstract: To improve the forward-looking nature of China’s reform of the grain reserve system, we need to not only focus on the requirements of coping with unexpected major events or incidents in the future, but also pay close attention to the consultation on the issue of food security and public reserves under the WTO framework. The inherent deficiency of relevant provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture has foreshadowed the debate on the issue of food security and public reserve. In the current consultations, some member states insisted that the project of food security and public reserve should not be included in the amber box, and even called for expansion of the scope of application. Some member states supported the motion of not including food security and public reserves in the “amber box”, but suggests strict discipline be imposed on the size and transparency of the reserves. Some member states also questioned the motion that food security and public reserve projects where grains are purchased and sold at management prices by member states of the developing countries should not be included in the amber box. None of these propositions will cause substantial constraint on China’s current grain reserve system, but the policy space brought by the WTO reform in different directions is not the same, so that corresponding consultative positions and strategies need to be adopted by China according to such policy space.

Keywords: WTO, food security and public reserves, amber box measures, China