Sino-Russian Trade In Agricultural Products: Analysis On The Developments And The Growth Factors

In the past decade, one of agricultural contribution is to meet the needs ofagricultural products in China, and provides a strong foundation support for China’seconomic development and social stability. With the development of industrialization andurbanization, facing frequent natural disasters, reduction of arable land, populationgrowth and resource limitation, as well as international food production and pricefluctuations, China is calling for the establishment of a sustainable, stable and safe supplymechanism of agricultural products. The most prominent problem is food security.Similarly, faced with increasing pressure on natural resources and rising internationalprices of agricultural products, the Russian scholars have not only realized thatagricultural development is increasingly important, but publicly tabled a proposal ofbuilding Russia to be a supply base of energy and resource-intensive goods in theAsia-Pacific region. At the same time, Russia’s agriculture is resource-intensive industryas a country with extensive resources, and China’s agriculture is labor-intensive industry,as a country with extensive labor resources. It is a complement of advantages to trade inagricultural products between two countries. Therefore, the expansion in agriculturalexports and a modest increase in the key agricultural imports can not only accelerate thedevelopment of agricultural industrialization in China, improve the structure ofagricultural import and export, and raise the level of trade in agricultural products, butalso play an important role in maintaining our food security and establishing the supplymechanism of agricultural products.The paper analyzes the developments and the growth factors of Sino-Russian tradein agricultural products, and is divided into six parts: the first is an introduction, mainlyon the background and significance of the paper’s topic, the research objectives andmethods, as well as domestic and international research on the Sino-Russian trade inagricultural products. In Chapter I, of the developments of Sino-Russian agriculturaltrade and changes of commodity structure, the discussion will be launchedcomprehensively, focusing on the comparison with the case before the financial crisis in2008. Chapter II is an analysis of trade index to focus on structural changes in agricultural trade between China and Russia. In Chapter III, an analysis on the factors onthe growth of agricultural trade between two countries will be carried out by usingConstant Market Share (CMS) model, focusing on the reasons for the change of importsof agricultural products. Chapter IV, with wheat trade as an example, illustrates thatSino-Russian agricultural trade has an important strategic significance for food security,as well as the huge potential for cooperation. The last part is a conclusion of bilateraltrade in agricultural products and forward-looking forecast.