Report by Danny Ding
Qin Gang, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., stressed the significance of agricultural cooperation between the U.S. and China during the US-China High-Level Agricultural Dialogue hosted in Iowa.
“When Chinese people’s aspiration for a better life meets U.S. quality agricultural products and advanced agricultural technologies, new potential emerges for agricultural cooperation.” Qin said, “the agricultural low-carbon and green transition could provide new opportunities to US-China cooperation.”
“Even affected by the additional tariffs and the distressed global industrial and supply chains, Sino-US trade surged by almost 30% year-on-year [in 2021]. That showed trade demand between the two countries has become even stronger,” said Liu from the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China in Beijing.
Chinese foreign trade in goods reached $1.48 trillion in the first quarter, up 10.7% year-on-year, according to the General Administration of Customs of China showed on April 11th. Trade with the U.S. reached $185.53 billion during the first three months, increasing 9.9% from a year ago.
Global Growth Forecast Decline
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed the global growth forecast for 2022 to 3.6% on Tuesday, 0.8% lower than the January projection, according to its newly released World Economic Outlook (WEO) report. The Chinese economy is expected to grow 4.4% this year, 0.4% lower than the previous projection, as shown in the WEO report.
Chinese imports of livestock products amounted to $7.82 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 7.0%, according to the latest data from January to February 2022. In contrast to pork and beef, mutton imports increased significantly. In the first two months of 2022, China imported 65,000 metric tons of mutton, a year-on-year increase of 33.0%.
Canton Fair
A record number of overseas purchasers registered for the 131st session of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair. The event was held online from April 15th to April 24th due to COVID-19 restrictions. The registrations increased by 41.8% from the 130th session, said Xu Bing, spokesperson for the fair.
Section 301 Investigation Changes
The two actions to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the U.S. (Section 301 Investigation, 2017) will end on July 6th and August 23rd, as announced by The U.S. Trade Representative Office on May 3rd. The office will initiate a statutory review process for the relevant actions as an immediate effect. The U.S. government will take all policy measures to curb the surge in prices, suggesting that reducing tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the United States will be considered, said U.S. Trade Representative Dai Qi on May 2nd.
Covid-19 Update
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Shanghai continues to be on lockdown for more than 40 days. Luckily, the number of local cases is declining. Meanwhile, a new round of clusters is emerging in many cities, including Beijing. Many cities in China have decided to avoid large-scale lockdown through normalized nucleic acid testing.
Moreover, Shanghai should reopen by May 15th. Beijing is affected by Omicron, but it has not interfered with daily life and work, except for endless COVID tests. The good news is that additional tariffs should be reduced soon, and the ag exports to China continue to grow despite all turbulences.
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