China, GMOs and World Trade in Agricultural and Textile Products

Kym Anderson and Shunli Yao

No 3171, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: China has always strived for self-sufficiency in farm products, particularly staple foods. Its rapid industrialization following its opening up to global markets during the past two decades has been making that more difficult, and its accession to the WTO may add to that difficulty. New agricultural biotechnologies could ease that situation. The adoption and spread of some of those biotechnologies in agriculture have, however, raised concerns, particularly over the environmental and food safety effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This Paper focuses on possible implications of the GMO controversy for China, since it is prospectively not only a major producer and consumer of GM farm products but also a potential exporter of some of them. It explores the potential economic effects of China not adopting versus adopting GMOs when some of its trading partners adopt that technology. The effects are shown to depend to a considerable extent on the trade policy stance taken in high-income countries opposed to GMOs and/or to liberalization of China?s trade in textiles and apparel.

Keywords: Gmos; Trade policy; Import ban; China; Wto (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C68 D58 F13 O30 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP3171 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: China, GMOs and World Trade in Agricultural and Textile Products (2001)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3171

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP3171
orders@cepr.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).