BEIJING -- An American business group appealed to China on Tuesday to ease import restrictions on agricultural goods including genetically modified seeds and other biotechnology, highlighting complaints that China blocks market access despite its vocal support for free trade.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China wants a quicker review of foreign biotechnology products, an end to restrictions on beef and pork imports and other changes. In a report, the group said such moves could improve the food supply for China's consumers and create new opportunities for Chinese and foreign companies.
Chinese leaders have publicly defended free trade in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's promises to restrict imports. But Tuesday's report echoed enduring complaints that China is the least open major economy.
In a separate segment of the food industry, foreign suppliers are alarmed by Chinese plans to require intensive inspections of imports including low-risk items such as wine and chocolate. The United States, the European Union and other suppliers worry that could disrupt billions of dollars of trade and are lobbying China to scale back its requirement.
Regarding agriculture, the American chamber cited areas, ranging from genetically modified seeds to grain processing to pork, in which imports and foreign competitors are banned or sharply restricted.
"There is huge opportunity for foreign business to access the Chinese market and that will really bring the whole industry up," a co-chairman of the chamber's agriculture committee, Yong Gao, told reporters.
Foreign suppliers have long complained that Beijing uses safety and other regulations to hamper imports of food and farm goods.
Regarding biotechnology, the chamber said Chinese approval of imported products takes several times longer than in the United States, Brazil or other countries and that the process is slowing down. Regulators approved only one of 18 foreign products under review in a list issued in January. Gao said that was fewer than in recent years.
"The industry is extremely disappointed," he said.
China lifted an import ban on U.S. beef in October, but producers must wait for individual facilities to be inspected by Chinese regulators before shipments can begin, a process that can take months.
On Monday, global trade leaders at forum in Beijing pushed back against Trump's protectionist rhetoric while warning China it must curb what some see as its own barriers to trade.
The forum, arranged by China's leaders, is attended by Chinese officials, executives from the world's biggest companies, former U.S. officials, leading academics, and Nobel laureates.
In contrast to the Group of 20 finance ministers' meeting that ended Saturday in Germany, where nations couldn't agree on a pledge against protectionism, attendees at the China Development Forum were united against it. Their focus was instead on how best to fix globalization's flaws by ensuring that any future gains are more equitably shared.
At stake is the rules-based system of international trade designed to prevent the wealth- and growth-destroying trade wars that wracked the global economy between two world wars. With such confrontations a looming threat under Trump, China was in the spotlight even on its home turf because of the trade surplus with the U.S. and a widespread perception that policy changes are further skewing its market against foreign competitors.
"China has become the U.S. lightning rod for trade with lower-wage countries," Charlene Barshefsky, a former U.S. Trade Representative and primary negotiator of the Asian nation's 2001 entrance to the World Trade Organization, told delegates. "Both the U.S. and China bear very substantial responsibility for an open global market. With respect to China that means a further reform and opening of the Chinese economy and the pullback of discriminatory measures will be essential if globalization is to retain legitimacy."
Information for this article was contributed by Joe McDonald of The Associated Press and by Peter Martin and Kevin Hamlin of Bloomberg News.
Business on 03/22/2017