From January to October, the value of Chinese agricultural imports jumped 55 percent to $23.66 billion while exports only rose 8.9 percent to $18.17 billion, statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture showed.
Rapid urbanisation and a rising standard of living are raising China's food consumption, while lowered tariff barriers for its textile exports have led to higher cotton imports.
Soyabean or edible oil imports would account for 40 percent of China's total farm produce imports this year, kA Bingsheng, director of the ministry's Research Center for Rural Economy, was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
In the first eleven months of this year, China imported a net 17.2 million tonne of soyabeans and 2.4 million tonnes of soyaoil, customs data showed. Meanwhile, cotton imports will surpass 2 million tonnes this year, kA said.
High cotton imports feed China's voracious textile industry, but they also depress prices for farmers, he said. Some cotton planters have already switched to winter wheat, reducing the acreage likely to be devoted to cotton in 2005, industry Web site CnCotton (www.cncotton.com) said.
China remains a net importer of animal products, bringing in $3.69 billion worth of animal products versus exports of $2.83 billion, the newspaper said. The resulting $860 million deficit is 34 percent higher than last year, it said.
In November, China agreed to resume imports of frozen chicken parts from most US states, after suspending them in January following an outbreak of avian flu in the United States.
China's fruit and vegetable exports were expected to register a surplus of $4.52 billion in 2004, the newspaper said.