Research On Sino-New Zealand Agricultural Trade

Since the establishment of Sino-New Zealand relationship in 1972, the two countries'economic and trade relations have undergone a steady development. In the global trend of regional economic integration, China officially signed the"Sino-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement"with New Zealand on April 7, 2008, making New Zealand the first developed country having such pact with China. This thesis, focusing on the current situation, the characteristics as well as the trading potentials of the agricultural production and the agricultural trade of the two traditionally agricultural giants under the background of the establishment of free trade area, are of great significance. The thesis, through calculation and taking actual situation into consideration, gives a comprehensive analysis of the current Sino-New Zealand agricultural trade and puts forward some suggestions on its strengthening. The six parts of the thesis, which are closely related, contribute to the main idea of the thesis.The first part, the introduction of the thesis, covers the background, the rationale of the research, the main idea of the thesis as well as the thesis structure. And, in this part, the author narrows down its research objective as the agricultural products defined by UN Food and Agriculture Organization.The second part, is of literature review, introduces the theories concerning international trade; summarizes the researches on Sino-New Zealand economic free zone and Sino-New Zealand trade in agricultural production; and reviews the studies on free trade zone, bilateral trade as well as the exporting potentials. All these provide a theoretical basis and a reference for analysis methodology.The third part summarizes the current situations of the agriculture production of China and New Zealand respectively with the discussions on the establishment of Sino-New Zealand free trade area as well as the main idea of the"Sino-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement". As for the China's agriculture production, the thesis mainly focuses on the natural resources, crop acreage, and the annual output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery as well as the production of major agriculture products. And generally speaking, China, with tight land and water resources, is not competitive in the field of resource-intensive agriculture products, but with abundant labor resources in rural areas and profound changes in agriculture and rural economic structure, labor-intensive agricultural output grows significantly. As for China's trade, the author introduces the trade policy changes brought by the reform and opening up and the trade policy after China getting access to the WTO. In recent years, both the imports and exports of China's agriculture products grow with the overall trade deficit expanding year by year. The discussions on New Zealand's agricultural production mainly focuses on natural resources, agricultural land use, the features of agriculture business and management as well as the production of major agricultural products. With unique resources for animal husbandry and fishery production, and the high specialization, intensification and labor productivity of agriculture production, and generally speaking, agriculture production plays a significant role in the whole nation's economy with leading animal husbandry department, relative development of forestry and fishing industry and underdevelopment of plant. As for New Zealand's trade, the overall agriculture trade presents enormous trade surplus because of the free trade and low tariff proposed by the government.The fourth part to be followed is mainly focusing on the analysis of current situation and characteristics of Sino-New Zealand agricultural trade. The overall trade between the two countries is on an upward trend year after year. And in terms of the trade in agricultural products, New Zealand's exports account for the vast majority of the total bilateral trade, whereas its exports of agriculture products take up 75%. The normalized trade balance index in agricultural production of the two countries shows that New Zealand's agricultural products are highly competitive, whereas China's agricultural products are relatively weak in competitiveness in the world market. In terms of the overall trade in agricultural products of the two countries and compared with other countries in the world, the China's relationship with New Zealand in the trade of agricultural products is relatively distant, whereas the New Zealand's relation with China in the trade of agricultural products is more closely. The analysis of the relative trade advantages in agricultural products of both countries shows that compared with other countries, China has strong trade advantages in 13 categories of agricultural products; New Zealand had 23; both of the two countries are not competitive for 17 other types. And the complementary analysis of the countries'agricultural trade on the basis of the above shows that the two countries compete in 9 categories of agricultural products and complement each other in 44 kinds. And the further study on the 44 complementary species finds that New Zealand has trade advantages in 23 categories of agricultural products, more than half of which are closely related to trade with China; whereas China have 21 categories of such products, of which only 4 products are closely related in trade with New Zealand and most have trade potentials.In the fifth part, the author estimates the trade potentials on the basis of analyzing the factors having impacts on the agricultural trade of the two countries through the gravitational model. The simulation results shows that Chinese agricultural exports to New Zealand has great potential for growth, whereas the actual New Zealand agricultural exports to China have exceeded its analog value, thus theoretically, the possibility for further exports is low.In the last part puts some suggestions on the promotion of trade in agricultural products. To begin with, in order to overcome the weakness and inadequacies of our agricultural production, China should strengthen the exchange and cooperation with New Zealand for the purpose of studying New Zealand's advanced agricultural production technology and management skills. In addition, with regard to the currents situation of agricultural production and trade, China should positively change the production method and adjust the structure of agricultural trade by focusing on the production of labor-intensive, high-value added, market acceptance agricultural products in order to be competitive in the global market. Finally to achieve the win-win goal instead of complementarities of bilateral agricultural exports, to promote common development of the trade between China and New Zealand, and to achieve common prosperity, the government should play the role of leading the promotion by establishing quality control system, improving the overall quality of agricultural products and being conducive to the agricultural production and trade policies.