China's 1999 total autumn and winter crops-planted acreage in China remained basically the same as that for 1998, 46 million hectares, except for a moderate drop in grain acreage.

A Ministry of Agriculture report says that owing to China's efforts to improve its production mix in line with market demand, grain acreage was reduced by 5.4 percent from the 1998 level.

Moreover, the report says, winter wheat acreage stood at 23 million ha, and most of the winter wheat producing provinces reduced their wheat acreage on the whole.

However, rape seed-sown acreage continued to grow, with the total autumn and winter acreage topping 7 million ha, a jump of 12 percent over 1998.

And vegetable acreage for 1999 surged 9.3 percent over the previous year to 6.4 million ha.