Economic growth and market liberalization in China: implications for agricultural trade

Abstract

Since the end of the Cultural Revolution the Chinese economy has grown very rapidly. This growth has been spurred by the major economic reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s which, among other things, liberalized domestic agricultural markets and international trade and in particular raised many producer prices for farmers. During the 1973-83 period China's income per capita grew at an annual rate of 4.5 per cent, almost treble that of other developing countries, while its foreign trade grew at more than twice the rate for the rest of the world.