US dissatisfied with farm trade talks

Talks held in Beijing last month between the US Trade Office's chief agricultural negotiator and
Chinese officials ended without any concrete progress being made to remove American
grievances on Chinese imports of farm produce, South China Morning Post said. When
Allen Johnson left Beijing for meetings in Japan, his office issued a press release
accusing the Chinese of stonewalling on market access for US farm produce. The debate
centred on China's system of tariff rate quotas that the Americans say the Chi-nese use to
restrict imports of cotton, wheat, corn and soybean oil from the US. However. both sides
have agreed to try to resolve vari-ous outstanding issues.
Meanwhile, China and the EU
have reached an agreement that will end China's ban on imports of beef and cheese from
the
Netherlands, the Financial Times said. Imposed by Beijing when cargoes of food-
stuffs from China were destroyed in Rotter-dam harbour following the discovery by
huropean scientists of traces of banned pes-ticides in imports of Chinese food, the ban
was justified by the risk of mad cow disease in the products. The two sides agreed that a
Chinese delegation would travel to the Netherlands in July to inspect the quality of Dutch
animal products.