A Study On The Flow And Potential Of China’s Agricultural Export Based On A Gravity Model

China is a large agricultural country with innate advantages in resource endowment and labor as well as price competitiveness on the world market. Chinese agricultural trade has stepped into an unprecedentedly soaring stage since the entry of WTO, whereas the growth rate of agricultural export is significantly slower than that of import. In the third year upon the accession, China was transformed from a long-time net agricultural exporter into a net agricultural importer. It will be discussed in this paper what mainly determines the flow of China’s agricultural export and whether the entry of WTO promotes China’s agricultural export.Meanwhile, in recent years, under the circumstance of a staggering multilateral free trade negotiation, regional economical cooperation, is flourishing and becoming an important way to accelerate the trade liberalization worldwide. So far, China has achieved FTAs with over10countries successively such as ASEAN. In view of the process of trade liberalization, agricultural sector may be a key and difficult issue in negotiations. The establishment of FTAs, undoubtedly, provides a great opportunity for Chinese agriculture owing to the eliminations of tariff. Hence, the study on to what extent FTAs promote China’s agricultural export is of profound significance.Based on a panel data, this paper is focused on analysis of China’s agricultural exports and the potential to major trade partners by the gravity model, concentrating on aggregate and classified agricultural products respectively. The results showed that:The accession to the WTO did not significantly promote China’s agricultural exports, however, bilateral free trade agreement has significantly affected the export, especially for livestock and aquatic products; China’s agricultural exports to countries like S.Korea and Switzerland are predicted inadequate and it is recommended to make preferential arrangements and accelerate the construction of regional FTA to promote China’s agricultural exports.