China saw a growth in agricultural product trade in the first quarter of 2021, with a surge in trade deficit.

Customs data show that China’s trade volume of agricultural products increased rapidly in the first quarter of 2021, with imports and exports both registering growth. Global inflation drove up the expansion of global trade, which is conductive to the recovery of global economy.
1) General situation of imports and exports of agricultural products
Total trade value: According to data from China Customs, the country’s foreign trade value of agricultural products amounted to USD 67.79 billion (439.4 billion yuan, up 18.13% year-on-year) in the first quarter of 2021, a year-on-year growth of 5.2%, accounting for 5.2% of the country’s total global trade value and 38.78% (up 2.3% over the same period of the previous year) of the added value of agriculture.
Imports: The accumulative import value of agricultural products grew by 34.0% year on year to USD 49.69 billion in the first quarter of 2021, contributing to 8.37% of the total import value of commodities and hitting a record high.
Exports: The export value of agricultural products rose by 11.5% to USD 18.1 billion in the first quarter, accounting for 2.5% of the total export value of commodities. 
Trade deficit: The trade deficit of agricultural products hit USD31.58 billion (204.65 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 40.7%) in the first quarter, increasing by 51.4% year on year, making up 63.16% of the net income of farmers, and the trade deficit ratio registered 46.57%.
2) Investments: According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total investment of urban enterprises above the designated size (refer to enterprises with annual revenue from principal business over 20 million yuan, similarly hereinafter) in the primary industry reached 263.2 billion yuan in the first quarter, up 45.9% year on year on comparable standards, the highest among the three industries. The investment in agriculture accounted for 2.74% of the total of the primary industry. According to historical data monitored by BOABC, the actual growth was 60.2% as the investment in the same period of the previous year decreased sharply due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
The trade deficit of agricultural products was 77.8% of the total investment in the first quarter. Serious shortage of investment is a key factor for the weak competitiveness of China’s agricultural products in international market.
Notes: In terms of data published by the National Bureau of Statistics, as the investments and production of enterprises (businesses) above the designated size change every month, to ensure the data comparability between years, the coverage of the data of the same period last year used for estimating year-on-year growth rates like that of the output by businesses above the designated size is consistent with the current period and different from the coverage of data published last year. The main reasons are: some enterprises (businesses) are included in the survey as they meet the threshold, while some enterprises (businesses) are removed from the survey because of downsizing every month. Besides, enterprises (businesses) that have newly gone into operation, been bankrupted, canceled their registrations or had their business licenses revoked also cause impact.
In terms of historical data monitored by BOABC, the data for a month refer to the actual monthly data of enterprises (businesses) above the designated size, and the data for a certain period such as the output for the first quarter are the sum of the monthly data published by the National Bureau of Statistics in this period. As enterprises (businesses) above the designated size changes every month, the sum of the monthly data for a certain period is different from the data published by the National Bureau of Statistics for this period, similarly hereinafter.