	china to import more  in china s  imports will rise in because of a serious drought and increasing demand but will be not be as large as in the past chinese officials and japanese traders told reuters they said foreign exchange constraints and national policy would not allow a return to large scale imports which peaked at mln tonnes in an agricultural official of the shanghai government put maximum imports at about mln tonnes this year against mln in and mln in officials said  imports rose in because of a poor harvest and rising domestic demand but remained below exports which rose to mln tonnes from mln in china is short of foreign exchange the shanghai official said we cannot rely on imports even at current low world prices only if there is a major disaster will we become a major importer a japanese trader in peking said chinese  imports would rise and exports fall this year because of the drought low world prices and rising domestic demand for human and animal consumption at current prices china loses yuan on every tonne of  it exports though it earns foreign exchange which it badly needs the trader said the people s daily said last saturday a serious drought is affecting mln hectares of arable land which will reduce the summer  harvest from last year s level the paper added that leaders in some areas were not paying enough attention to agriculture especially  making it difficult to achieve the  output target of mln tonnes against mln in all areas must spare no effort to raise the autumn harvest area especially of corn sweet potatoes paddy rice and high yield cash crops it said it added factory production might have to be reduced to provide electricity for agriculture if it was needed to fight the drought since january the press has devoted much attention to  stressing that growth in output is vital to china s economic and political stability and that prices paid to farmers are too low officials in east china have repeatedly said stable  production is a key state policy and outlined the measures being taken in their areas to encourage output the shanghai official said that in one suburb pct of the pre tax profits of factories are used to subsidise agriculture he said rural industries in other suburbs also set aside money for  and pay the salaries of some of the workers available to help farmers chu jinfeng an official of fengbing county outside shanghai said factory workers get yuan a month and three years unpaid leave to grow  and can keep the profits pan huashan an official of the agricultural department of zhejiang province said rural industry also subsidises  output in his province in addition we are setting up  production bases raising the level of science and technology on the farms and improving the supply of raw materials roads and other infrastructure he said the shanghai official said rural residents who work in industry or commerce usually keep their land to farm in their spare time or let other family members farm it in some cases they lease the land to  farmers the china daily said last month that  output should reach between and mln tonnes by and between and mln by it said growing  should be made profitable the advantages the state promises  growers actually yield tangible profits for them and are not siphoned off by intermediate agencies because of bureaucracy or corruption only this will boost enthusiasm it said reuter 
