A Research On The Impacts Of Eu’s Animal Wealfare Standards On Export Trade

Animal welfare is closely related to security of meat products, stress response, veterinary drug residues and animal disease produced in animal feeding process will directly affect the quality of meat. Today the demand of animal welfare related to the production of meat products is getting higher in many developed countries, but the attention for animal welfare in China is lagging behind due to differences in cultural, ethical and the economic development. The EU is pioneer of advocating for animal welfare, who has led the world in animal welfare legislation and implementation all the way, in recent years, the impacts of EU’s animal welfare standards on export trade are becoming increasingly significant. China is the first meat production country in the world currently, export trade of meat products rapid growth, but the proportion of meat exports of China to the EU have been low. China produced79.57million tons of meat in2011, of which are exported to the EU is25,400tons, accounted for only0.032percent of the China meat production. Therefore, it is imperative to study the impacts of EU’s animal welfare standards on China’s exports of meat products.This article systematically introduced animal welfare regulations and directives issued by the EU on the basis of looking back on previous literature, analyzed the development of China’s export trade of meat products under the condition of EU’s animal welfare standards by the way of drawing graphics or charts through collecting the related data; it dissected influence mechanisms of China’s export trade of meat products in theory by using partial equilibrium analysis method; in the case of Chinese meat products, it made econometric analysis and verification for the impacts of EU’s animal welfare standards on export trade in stages through the analysis of time series and panel data model.The results of empirical research indicate that EU’s animal welfare standards effected China’s meat exports through the volume control and price control mechanisms; from1996to2003, the EU’s animal welfare standards had no effect on the scale of export, but made our country’s export of meat products create transfer effect; from2004to2011, EU’s animal welfare standards created inhibition effect for the export of beef, pork, poultry meat and its offal, created promoting function for the export of products made by meat, the rest of meat and offal or that is not easy to distinguish, in this period, EU’s animal welfare standards didn’t made our country’s export of meat products create transfer effect; the EU’s animal welfare standards improved meat products’price terms of trade in China from1996to2011.Meanwhile, the author proposed related ideas and policy advice based on the empirical conclusion in five aspects:perfecting animal welfare regulations, motivating the mass and standardization culture of the animal that can be made to meat, implementing the animal label system, readjusting the structure of the meat exports rationally and expanding the EU market.