BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- China's agricultural trade deficit against the United States, which stood at 1.53 billion U.S. dollars in 2001, jumped 150 percent to 3.77 billion dollars in 2005, the China Economic Times reported Sunday.

    Yin Chengjie, Chinese Vice Minister of Agriculture, made the remark at a recent economic forum on Sino-U.S. trade relations held in Beijing, the newspaper said.

    Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it has witnessed increasing net import of farm products, Yin said.

    Figures showed that from 2001 to 2005, the Sino-U.S. trade of agricultural products rose almost 2.4 times from 4.1 billion dollars to more than 10 billion dollars.

    Meanwhile the proportion of the Sino-U.S. agricultural trade in China's total trade of agricultural products rose from 4.5 percent to 17.2 percent, according to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture.

    "The United States has become one of the major sources of China's agricultural product import," said Yin.

    In 2005, China imported 26.59 million tons of soybeans and 2.65 million tons of cotton from the United States, and in the first ten months of 2005, the agricultural product export of the United States to China grew 28 percent, figures show.

    Yin attributed the expanding trade deficit in Sino-U.S. agricultural trade mainly to the unequal market opening of the two countries.

    Although the United States imports horticultural products worth 16 billion to 18 billion dollars, and animal products worth 7 billion to 9 billion dollars from other parts of the world, many of China's farm products with comparative advantages including pears and apples have no access to the U.S. market, the newspaper said.

    The two countries should enhance cooperation in farm field, andopen their agricultural markets equally, so as to solve the unbalanced trade problem, said Yin.

    Since 2001, China strictly implemented its obligation and promises to the World Trade Organization, through cutting down itsimport tariffs over farm products by large margins.

    Now the average tariff rate over imported farm products only stands at 15.3 percent.

    Meanwhile the Chinese government also eliminated the non-tarifftrade barriers in this area, and set up fair and transparent systems on quota management.

    Figures showed China's trade surplus of agricultural products totaled 4.2 billion dollars in 2001, but it turned into deficit of4.64 billion dollars in 2004.

    Insiders believe some other factors also contributed to the fluctuations in the country's farm produce trade.

    In the past years, China faced supply shortfall for some major agricultural products, like grain and cotton, which led to increased imports.

    At the same time, the country's poultry and livestock exports slipped back because of the birdflu outbreak and other animal diseases. Enditem