Measuring International Trade Costs About Agriculture In Zhejiang Province And Its Inlfuencing Factors

Agriculture product trade is an important and knotty issue for different countries inthe world. The trend of China’s agriculture product international trade is the centre. Withdeeper global economic integration, China’s agriculture market has become one of themost open markets in the world. As a key part of agricultural product trade, trade costplays an important role in this trade. Zhejiang province, active in agricultural productinternational trade, has its proper place in the national agricultural market. This thesisanalyses current agricultural product trade cost and its influencing factors in Zhejiangprovince as well as offers strategies for decreasing trade costs. The thesis has a practicalmeaning to the sustainable development of Zhejiang’s agricultural product trade.Firstly, on the basis of looking through relevant literature, references andsecond-hand materials, this thesis analyses the basic situations of agricultural producttrade in Zhejiang and finds out following characters---its export has bigger size butlower position; obvious advantages but too focused types; many export destinationcountries but not enough markets; rapid development but the general cost has beenincreasing.Secondly, from three dimensions (time period, product and country), the thesis talksabout trade costs of Zhejiang’s main agricultural products exported to different countriesby analyzing statistics regarding agricultural products and GDP of different countriesfrom the custom house website.Thirdly, according to the trade cost statistics, the thesis analyses elements thatinfluence the trade costs and finds out that each factor has its own influence on the tradecosts. For instance, geographical distance, exchange rate cost, system cost, historicalconnection and whether it belongs to the same trade company, those factors have positiveinfluence; while trade barrier, whether it’s a high-income country or whether twocountries are adjacent, those factors don’t have obvious influence on the issue; languagebarrier doesn’t have certain influential direction.Finally, this thesis analyses different factors that influence trade costs by using astatistic software called Stata. Upon this, the thesis provides strategies for decreasing Zhejiang trade costs, including looking for more low-cost products, improvingagricultural technology, making better-quality products, speeding logistics industry upand decreasing transportation costs.