Low Oil Prices Drive up China's Crude Oil Imports

China’s crude oil imports hit a record high in the first half of 2016 despite an economic slowdown,and analysts largely attributed the surge to low prices,not strategic maneuvering.The country imported 186.5 million tons of crude oil in the first half of the year,23.15 million

China's meat and grain imports during 2000–2012 and beyond: A comparative perspective

This paper provides a review on China＇s meat trade for the 2000–2012 period and discusses its future development, with reference to China＇s grain trade. With marginal decreases in meat exports and slight increases in their imports, China＇s net imports of major meat products（including pork, beef, mutton and poultry but excluding meat offal） were just below 1 million tons in 2012, dwarfed by China＇s net imports of grains which reached 66.7 million tons in the same year. This slow growth in meat trade seems to contradict earlier expectations on increasing meat demand and imports, based upon projected shifts in consumption patterns driven by rapid per capita income growth. Several plausible explanations of this paradoxical trade pattern are offered, including mass imports of feed grains, persistent（but shrinking） gaps between Chinese and international meat prices, tariff barriers, and non-tariff measures. In the near future China may not be able to maintain such a lower profile on the world meat markets, as per capita income is projected to continue to rise and domestic production cost advantages erode due to rising labor costs. A model-based projection exercise indicates that under plausible assumptions China＇s meat imports may rise sharply by 2030.

Changing structure of China's meat imports

This paper discusses the determinants of meat imports of China. Results indicate that import demand is mostly determined by import price and real GDP. Imported price has a negative effect and real GDP has a positive influence on import quantity. Tariff does not have a significant effect. As GDP and consumption capacity increases, China has a large potential demand for meat imports. Some countries may gain if China＇s economy continues expanding, while others, like the United States, are the most sensitive to the trade policy of China.

Meat consumption in China and its impact on international food security: Status quo, trends, and policies

1.Background China has seen drastic nutrition transition and food structure change with rapid economic growth in the past three decades.Specifically,the traditional fibre-dominated food system is being replaced by a western-style meat-dominated diet（Yu and Abler 2009;Tian and Yu 2013）.In traditional China meat was regarded as a rarity and normally consumed during festivals,now it has become daily food for most Chinese consumers.

Price transmission in hog and feed markets of China

There is an increasing demand for feed as the industrialization of hog production in China. Land scarcity limits China＇s ability to continue increasing its hog production without feed imports, particularly soybean, and the feed markets are increasingly integrated into the global market. This study performs an analysis of price transmission between the hog price in China and feed prices, specifically domestic maize price and international soybean price, from January 2000 to April 2014. We identified a long-term stable equilibrium relationship between the three markets. However, further analyses show that there is no significant Granger causality between hog and feed market, and the long-run equilibrium partially results from Granger causality between the international soybean market and domestic maize market. This suggests that the domestic hog market has been distorted by different policies. The results also indicate that the efficiency of price transmission is very low and it takes about 11 months to correct one-half of any long-run disequilibrium for the hog market in China. Therefore, to stabilize hog price in China, only market intervention to regulate the maize and soybean markets would be insufficient and comprehensive measures need to be taken into account such as hog production modernization, agricultural insurance, epidemic surveillance etc.

Exchange Rate Pass-through in China

During the second half of 2007 and early part of 2008 when there were intense inflationary pressures in China, RMB appreciation was advocated as a means of helping to curb inflation. The effectiveness of appreciation in controlling inflation depends on the impact of exchange rate movements on import and domestic prices. Our analysis finds fairly large and speedy exchange rate pass-through （ERPT） to import prices： 50 and 60percent for the short run and long run, respectively. However, the degree of ERPT decreases along the price chain from upstream to downstream prices. ERPT for consumer prices, the most downstream prices, is much milder and has substantial lags. A 10-percent rise in the nominal effective exchange rate will dampen consumer prices by 1.1 percent within a year, with very little pass-through in the first half year, and by 2.0percent over the long run. These findings, particularly the ERPT to consumer prices, suggest that RMB appreciation can help to reduce inflationary pressures over the longer term. However, it is unlikely to provide rapid relief to the current round of high inflation because of the long lags in ERPZ. The RMB needs to strengthen in effective terms to exert the desired dampening impact on prices.