- New Hope Group chairman calls for central government subsidies to upgrade agriculture sector
The Chinese government needs to improve its fiscal and industry policies to protect domestic producers expected to be squeezed by higher imports of US agricultural products, according to agribusiness tycoon Liu Yonghao.
“More imports of soybeans and corn will help reduce the cost of raising livestock, but Chinese farmers, and the animal feed industry in China will definitely be under pressure,” Liu said on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on Sunday. “Agriculture in the United States is much more efficient than in China and they will have the upper hand.”
Liu, the 67-year-old billionaire chairman of China’s New Hope Group and a CPPCC member, runs the country’s biggest agriculture conglomerate. Each year, the company produces around 20 million tonnes of animal feed and processes 1.3 billion chickens and eight million pigs, according to its website.