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China WTO entry may boost farm exports

SEOUL: outh Korea said on Tuesday that China's expected entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year was likely to boost its farm product exports to South Korea in the longer term.

Kim Sung-hoon, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, told Reuters that Chinese farm exports would become cheaper following WTO accession and transport costs to Korea were low compared to other suppliers.

"Chinese agricultural products will compete with other exporters to Korea as well as with domestic products," he said in an interview. "But cheaper soybeans, cheaper maize may hurt other countries more than our agriculture," he added.

The United States is a major soybean and corn supplier to South Korea though in recent months cheaper Chinese corn has taken a growing share of the Korean market.

In the short term, Kim said Chinese entry to the WTO will probably not hurt South Korea's agricultural market as it has been applying the same preferential treatment to China as to existing WTO members.

South Korea depends on large corn and soybean imports for its animal feed industry. The country's animal feed production totalled about 15 million tonnes last year, up from 3.5 million tonnes in 1980. China said this week that it is in the final stages of negotiating its entry to the World Trade Organisation and full membership was not far away.

"We are at the final, concluding stage in our negotiations with a few members, including the EU, that have yet to reach bilateral agreements with us," Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng said in a statement.-Reuters