China, Europe seek win-win from GI deal

Agricultural cooperation

Li Yan, deputy chief of the Foreign Economic Cooperation Center under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that the China-EU agreement on GIs has opened a new door to bilateral agricultural cooperation. Li cited the fact that 70 percent of the Chinese GI products on the list are related to the agricultural sector.

He said that the vendors of European GI products coming to China can now rest assured, while the companies behind Chinese GI products can actively reach out to the EU market. "The mutual recognition of GI products is great news for countries, businesses, producers and consumers," Li said.

While China's agricultural trade with EU has expanded rapidly in the past years, the growth has been unbalanced. Imports have outgrown exports, resulting in increasing trade deficits.

According to Li, the agricultural trade deficit between China and EU expanded from $9.21 billion in 2019 to $14.79 billion in 2020.

Fish, vegetables and oilseeds account for 39 percent of Chinese agricultural exports to the EU while pork and pork products, dairy products, wines and spirits, including many GI products, make up 76 percent of the EU's agri-food exports to China.

Li believes that the Chinese demand for EU agri-foods is high and has been relatively concentrated in a few categories.

He said that the GI agreement will help upgrade China's agricultural sector, adding that many Chinese quality agricultural products are still like "ginseng being sold at radish price" due to lack of GI certification, a Chinese idiom for being underpriced.

"The GI agreement is a rare opportunity for promoting China-EU agricultural cooperation," said Li, adding that China must seize the opportunity and take multipronged measures to develop its own brands and quality agriculture and further open the agricultural sector to the outside world.

He said China has a lot to learn from the EU in the agricultural sector, from quality and safety control to GI regulations and protection, noting that the center he works for is also known as China-EU Center for Agricultural Technology, a cooperative project first funded by the then European Community, the forerunner of the EU.