Study On The Impact Of Food Safety On China 's Agricultural Products Export Trade

Since the reform and opening in China, our economic and trade develop rapidly. Currently there is favorable balance of trade in whole, however, unfavorable balance of trade on agricultural product began in 2004. One of the most important problems in the agricultural product export trade is the food safety. In recent years, the credibility of the food safety is missing due to the occurrence of the problems on food safety from time to time, which results in adverse effects on all respects of the society. Not only the stricter the import inspection standard is, the effect of the food safety is also the crux of the trade barrier in the field of the agricultural product export. The trade will be restrained in the lack of the assurance of the agricultural product quality. Therefore, this article explores the factors affecting the export trade of the agricultural product in respect of the food safety.Based on the Game Theory, New Trade Protectionism and Externality Theory and combined with the facts in food safety and agricultural product export trade, etc, this article analyzes the reasons of the food safety in agricultural product export trade, including the domestic areas which are the unsound legal system, inadequate supervision, technological backwardness, the late beginning of Agro-Product Geographical Indication protection, the delayed safety information publish and the overseas areas focused on the prevailing protectionism, attention to the food safety and the environmental protection paid by the international society and the strict standard brought by the regional integration. From the aspect of technical barrier to trade often occurred in agricultural product export and by virtue of expansive gravity model, this article analyzes specific influence of food safety on agricultural product export trade in the short and long term respectively, which considering the amount of the notifications reported by overseas SPS, as well as its lagged effect, and the representational factors of the food safety on a basis of the GDP in the original importing country and the exporting country and the variable quantity of the distance of the two countries. The conclusion is that, in the short term, the stricter standard of food safety will result in the reduction of agricultural product export whereas such standard will result in the promotion in the long term. In practice, our country takes a slow reaction facing at the food safety problem in the agricultural product export, having some issues like inefficient response to the problem along with the lack of the sound precaution system corresponding to the international standard. If we don’t adjust in time, with the emphasizing on the issue of environmental protection, agricultural product export will meet more obstacles, even leading to the import substitution by the foreign agricultural product. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the legal system and specify the responsibilities of all parties to the society, along with enhance the export competitive power of the agricultural product comprehensively, in order to reduce the negative effects of food safety on the agricultural product export and promote the transformation in the trade of China from the great nation to the powerful nation.