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China's new restrictive regulations on GM crops and foods are expected to affect the world oilseed market in some significant way. A good understanding of consumer acceptance of vegetable oil made from genetic modified (GM) oilseed in China is essential to understand how prosperous the Chinese market for GM oilseeds and oils will be in the future. It will also likely to affect the future direction of the private and public investments in the development and use of GM technology in the sector. The objective of this paper is to analyse factors that influence consumer acceptance of GM vegetable oil and to estimate the Chinese consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for non-GM vegetable oil. A sample of 671 consumers was interviewed in Beijing and a dichotomous choice format contingent valuation method is applied to elicit the consumer WTP for non-GM oil. The survey data were analyzed using a bivariate probit selectivity model in order to account for non-response bias and sample selectivity. The computed WTP indicates, on average, that the survey respondents are willing to pay a 33% premium in order to consume non-GM oil. This indicates a considerable skepticism in the Chinese population toward GM oil. The results also indicate that the consumer acceptance toward GM oil is affected by many socio-economic and demographic factors. It is interesting to observe that males are willing to pay slightly higher premium for non-GM oil than female respondents. The respondents less than 35 years old are the least willing to pay more premiums for non-GM oil. Young respondents' WTP is less than half what old respondents are willing to pay for non-GM oil. The respondents with university education or higher tend to pay much higher premium for non-GM oil than those who are less educated. The respondents with high school or less education are not willing to pay much premium for non-GM oil at all. Young respondents' WTP is less than half what old respondents are willing to pay for non-GM oil. This finding suggests that university-educated people are more concerned with food safety issues. Typically, their income sources are higher and more stable as compared to less educated groups, and therefore are willing to pay a higher premium for non-GM oil. In addition, the respondents who are married are willing to pay higher premium for non-GM oil than these who are single. |