Comparative Research About Aquatic Products Trade Among South Korea, China And Japan

Aquaculture is an important component of agriculture and it helps a lot to improve farmers' income, optimize industrial structure of agriculture, and develop the rural economy. Similarly, the export of aquatic products makes great contribution not only to the development of the whole aquaculture, but also to enhancing farmers'incomes, increasing domestic employment, and creating foreign exchange for the country. Therefore, all countries actively seek cooperation and establish FTA (Free Trade Areas) with other countries. As a big country of aquatic products, South Korea, China and Japan account for 24% of the output of aquatic products in the world in 2005, and the trade volume of aquatic products among the three countries is huge. So the study which is about the comparative analysis of aquatic products trade and the establishment of FTA among these three countries is of great significance.There are many theoretical basis about the comparative analysis of aquatic products trade among South Korea, China and Japan, such as free trade theory, protective trade policy, trade competition theory, and regional trade theory and relevant theory about FTA. With increase of the world's output of aquatic products and the rapid development of the trade of aquatic products, the world aquatic trade begins to show many features: The scale of aquatic products trade in the world continues to expand, and the output and trade of aquaculture products is increasing year by year; The import market of aquatic products mainly focus in Japan, the United States, and the European Union, while the export market of t is diffuse; The aquatic products exports of developing countries growing so rapidly that they have caught up with the level of developed countries, the average price of worldwide aquatic products is stable, but the average prices of major exporting countries are different significantly. The developing trends of world aquatic products trade are like the followings: The world trade volume of aquatic products increase because of the enhancing demand of aquatic products consumption and the development of aquiculture; The requirements about the quality safety and technology content of aquatic products also improve gradually in the world trade, which would raise the threshold of import aquatic products; In addition, because aquatic products are easy to be perishable ,the proportion of processing trade will increase accordingly.The aquaculture of South Korea, China and Japan is vigorous, and total output of aquatic products of China consecutively has ranked 1st in the world for 18 years, in addition, Japan is the world's largest importer of aquatic products all the time. The trade relations of aquatic products between South Korea and China is very close, and they take each other as important trade partners of aquatic products, while the dependence of South Korea and Japan is relatively a little lower, the trade relations of aquatic products between South Korea and China is closer than that between South Korea and Japan. Compared with China, South Korea's aquatic products has a dominant disadvantage, while compared to Japan South Korea is in a very slight advantage. Compared with South Korea and Japan, China is in the absolute superiority. The trade form between South Korea and China, China and Japan is mainly in different industries, however the trade form between South Korea and Japan and not obvious.South Korea, China and Japan have formulated their own aquatic products trading system, except tariffs, there are various non-tariff measures. South Korea and Japan's trade regimes are more stringent, especially Japan, whose import requirements and standards of aquatic products are extremely harsh.South Korea, China and Japan have made positive efforts for the conclusion of FTA which will make tariff rate decline sharply, the effect of tariff protection disappear, and the trade of China's aquatic products is likely to increase. At the same time due to the bad aquatic environment compared with China and Japan, the possibility of the export increase of aquatic products of South Korea is very small, but the imports will rise sharply. Using the experience of the EU FTA and the North American FTA for reference, to promote the aquatic products trade of these three countries, we can make use of the following policy proposals: Give full play to the role of the three countries'government; Frame the FTA plan that can make three countries to achieve a win-win situation as soon as possible; Promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment actively; Coordinate the structure of aquatic products of the three countries properly; Aquaculture enterprises should improve the quality of aquatic products, actively implement the brand strategy.The comparative research of aquatic products trade among South Korea, China and Japan is made by method that combines qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis together, comparative analysis method, econometric and statistical analysis method and the method that combines theory analysis and practice analysis together. Innovations are: On the basis of the analysis about the trade development of aquatic products in the world ,this paper discuss the integral development strategy and policy measures on the trade of aquatic products among these three countries ,and how to enhance the comparative advantages and international competitiveness of aquatic products; by tight degree of trade, regional revealed comparative advantage index, intra-industry trade index, this paper makes quantitative analysis about the comparative advantages and international competitiveness of aquatic products in South Korea China and Japan, the research methods are innovation and new features compared with other researches; From the perspective of the establishment of FTA , analyze the affection that FTA make to the aquatic products trade in these three countries...