On Dec. 17, 2016, the State Council General Office released Opinions on Further Promoting Development of Agricultural Products Processing Industry (GBF [2016] No. 93, Opinions).

Currently, the operating costs are increased, various burdens are heavy and profit space is compressed for agricultural products processors. Aiming at these problems, the Opinions put forward a series of policies and measures in aspects of finance and taxation. For instance, in fiscal support, agricultural-supporting funds are required supporting agricultural product processing projects, and public facility construction of agricultural product processing industry; in taxation policies, the Opinions required expanding scope of pilots for agricultural product input VAT amount reduction, and regulating, perfecting and clarifying scope of preliminary processing preference.

For agricultural product processing VAT, VAT rate for enterprises processing and selling outsourced agricultural products is reduced from 17% to 13%.

For agricultural product processing industry income tax, corporate income tax can be exempted or reduced for enterprises engaging in agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishery projects.

For agricultural product export rebate, rebate policy consistent with statutory rebate rate will be implemented for agricultural products export; for agricultural products which export rebate rate fails to reach statutory rate, export rebate rate shall be improved preferentially.