Agriculture is an important front to grow our relations and deepen our cooperation. Over the years, China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation in agriculture have maintained a good momentum of steady growth. This is attributable first and foremost to the fact that both are major agricultural countries, enjoying a great deal of common interests and a broad space of cooperation.

Secondly, it is attributable to China's strong performance in fulfilling its WTO commitments over the past decade. As promised, China reduced its tariffs on agricultural products to one quarter of the world's average, and its fairly low level of support to domestic producers has constituted no barrier to normal trade. Over the 10 years, agricultural trade between China and the United States has maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent. With the trade volume topping $30 billion in 2011, China has become the largest export market for American agricultural products. The rapid growth of China-U.S. agricultural trade has not only increased food varieties for our kitchens, but also provided suitable consumer markets for the high-quality agricultural products from both countries.

Needless to say, the steady growth of China-U.S. agricultural cooperation is attributable to the close attention paid by the two governments. The agricultural sectors of the two countries are quite different in natural resource endowment, stage of development and the level of technology. But both governments have attached great importance to agriculture, made increased agricultural trade and improved investment environment the key agenda item and regarded closer international cooperation as an important vehicle for domestic agricultural development and common progress in global agricultural development, thus facilitating a sustained and steady agricultural development in both countries, with continuous expansion of their agricultural markets and deepening of their agricultural cooperation. What is more, the uninterrupted and effective dialogue and practical collaboration between the agricultural agencies of the two countries under such bilateral mechanisms as the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogues, China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade and China-U.S. Joint Commission on Agriculture have contributed to the track record of success in China-U.S. agricultural cooperation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As a developing country of 1.34 billion people, China always attaches great importance to food security of the nation, and gives agricultural production, rural development and income multiplication for farmers the highest priority so as to effectively meet the challenge of feeding its enormous population. Over the 60-odd years since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, China has increased its grain output from over 100 million tons to 570 million tons, with the per capita level increasing from 200 kg to 400 kg. The supply of meat, eggs, dairy products, aquatic products, vegetables and fruits have grown in both quantity and variety. Per-capita net annual earnings of farmers have increased from 44 yuan to 6,977 yuan, resulting in a substantial drop in rural poor and marked improvement of farmers' livelihood. With less than 9 percent of the world's arable land, China has managed to feed almost 21 percent of the world's population. In 2011, China succeeded in raising its grain output for the eighth consecutive year since 2004, and achieving a harvest of grain over 500 million tons for the fifth consecutive year since 2007. All this has ensured stability in domestic grain market.