and the net imports rose to 15 million tons annually. Actually, the import of a large net volume of grains into China is not a recent phenomena, but it has been 10-20 million tons annually since 1977, except in 1985, 86,92 and 93 according to the FAO data as shown in the same chart. According to a recent publication of the USDA34~, the Peking government was forced to consider the long-term demand and supply of food in China by foreign and domestic reasons in 1994 and 95 and conducted researches within some ministries and universities. Based on the research result, the government decided to change its food policy from long-held food self-sufficiency policy to 88 -95% self-sufficiency policy. China consumes 112 million tons of wheat, 109 million tons of corn and 129 million tons of rice in 1995. An enormous amount of grain totaling 42 million tons annually (including 15.5 million tons of white rice) needs to be imported if the self-sufficiency rate is only 88%. Since the world trade markets in wheat and corn are thick meaning the total trading volume is large compared to the global total production, and the markets can manage the large import by China. But significant increase in the world rice trade price and confusion can be expected for the world rice trade market is thin meaning only 4% (15 million tons) of the world total production (White rice) is traded.
It can be concluded that the rapid increase that has occurred from the eighties until now in grains demand by the developing countries, represented by China and other Asian countries, has had the effect of reducing the global grain stock ratio.
5. The Effect of Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Products Imports by Japan.
According to FAO statistics, Japan is the biggest importer of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the world, and imported US$70.6 billion worth in 1994. Germany imported US$51.9 billion, France US$33.2 billion and Great Britain US$33.1 billion in the same year. Japan has behaved very differently
