Theoretical And Empirical Research On Location Choice Of China's Agricultural Outward FDI

The development of globalization and severe situation of food security in China have become the key to speeding up the Chinese agriculture into the process of the development of world agriculture,relieving the pressure of resources and environment in China,enhancing the international competitiveness of Chinese agriculture and getting the control ability of agricultural resource in the world.Since the establishment of the strategy of "going out" in 2006,the scale of China's foreign direct investment has been expanding,and initially formed a diversified development of investment areas and field.Between 2006 and2015,the stock of China's agricultural foreign direct investment has increased more than 13 times,from$817 million to $11.48 billion.Meanwhile,Chinese enterprises also have many problems in the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI,for example,the location of China's agricultural outward FDI over concentrates in the surrounding area,although it is in line with the principle of comparative advantage of factor endowments,it may also exacerbate China's agricultural overseas investment risk due to the uncertainty of individual countries and market environment.Based on this,the study on location decision behavior and characteristics of China's agricultural outward FDI,comprehensive analysis and accurate assessment of factors affecting the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI,scientific evaluation and reasonable selection of key region and important nation of Chinese overseas investment in agriculture,will not only enrich relevant theories of "going out" strategy,but also has important practical significance to accelerate the global strategic layout of China's agricultural outward FDI.This paper systematically reviews the relevant theoretical basis of agricultural outward FDI and summarizes the research dynamics of domestic and foreign scholars.The author finds that the present research on agricultural outward FDI is mainly based on manufacturing industry,service industry or the whole industry,neglecting the characteristics of reginal specialized production and agricultural products production,particularly the location of China's agricultural outward FDI,and there is no study on decision-making,mechanism and method of location choice in agricultural outward FDI.Therefore,this paper focuses on the factors affecting the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI and the decision-making process and results of the reasonable location choice,and draws the following conclusions:Firstly,this paper analyzes the status of China's agricultural outward FDI.Among the overall situation,the author starts analysis from four aspects such as the number of enterprises,the distribution and area ofinvestment,the scale of investment and the circumstances of investment in major countries(regions),concluding that from 2006 to 2015,China's agricultural outward FDI in the number of enterprises showed a slow growth after the rapid rising development trend.Asia,Africa and North America are the places that China concentrated to set up regional foreign enterprises.Although the scale of China's agricultural outward FDI is growing,it is still small.On this basis,the author analyzes the object of China's agricultural outward FDI mainly from five parts such as enterprise scale,the level of investment,sources of enterprises,investment forms and geographical orientation of foreign investment,obtaining five characteristics such as small-scale,low level of investment,diverse investment,regional development of investment pattern and concentration of investment area.Secondly,this paper makes analysis on the distribution causes of China's agricultural outward FDI.The international environment is the most influential aspect of investment activities.The factors influencing the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI include policy factors and agricultural economic development level.The host country factors include agricultural natural resources,labor quantity and quality,infrastructure.Stable economic cooperation is one of the factors that affect China's agricultural outward FDI.Socially cultural "distance" also has an important impact on behavior of China's agricultural outward FDI.Enterprise investment motivation,competitive advantage,scale and overseas investment experience will be direct impact of the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI.Industy selection and the way of entry are closely related with location choice decisions,and they also have an important impact on the location choice of China's agricultural outward FDI.Thirdly,focus on important regional and national choice of China's agricultural outward FDI.Combined with the geographic distribution of China's agriculture "going out",and countries along “the Belt and Road”,countries signed with China and still having effective agricultural cooperation agreement(Memorandum),the state of bilateral investment treaties,the author constructs a candidate location set.Appling with modified BP Neural network approach to its agricultural investment environment assessment,we obtained: Europe,North America and Oceania developed countries,and China's neighboring Asian countries and some Latin American and African countries are the focus area of China's agricultural outward FDI on the comprehensive level.The rich rural labor resources of Africa,Latin America,Central Asia,Eastern Europe and ASEAN countries are the focus area of China's agricultural outward FDI based on resource-oriented.Europe and the United States developed countries,Russia,Brazil and Africa and other emerging markets and China's neighboring Asia,Oceania are the focus area of China's agricultural outward FDI based on market-oriented.Europe,North America and Oceania developed countries,China's neighboring Asian countries and some relatively stable political environment in Africa and Latin America are the focus area of China's agricultural outward FDI based on policy-oriented.Developed countries from Europe and the United States,Asian countries with better infrastructure conditions and higher levels ofpublic service,as well as some African and Latin American countries are the focus areas of China's agricultural outward FDI based on efficiency-oriented.Forthly,this paper puts forward the policy recommendations of promoting China's agricultural outward FDI in the global layout.Some policy recommedations are proposed from many aspects such as the improvement of agriculture "going out" strategy and the implementation of strategies,the integration of advantages and resources,giving full play to comparative advantages,doing good pre-demonstration work of agricultural investment projects,improving the early warning and prevention mechanisms of overseas agricultural investment risk,optimizing the tax preferential system,increasing financial support,enhancing the existing funds support efforts to strengthen the multi-bilateral exchanges between the government,and actively using foreign resources to promote agriculture "going out" and so on.