Research On The Competitiveness And Potential Of China Europe Agricultural Products Trade

Foreign trade is a key hub for smooth domestic and international circulation.The CPC Central Committee and the State Council on the Significance of Doing a Good Job in the Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023 pointed out that we should comprehensively improve the level of opening up,build a new open economy system of a higher level,and promote the coordinated development of imports and exports.In recent years,with the continuous improvement of global trade liberalization and the deepening of China Europe economic and trade relations,China and the EU have become important agricultural trade partners for each other.However,since the "the Belt and Road" initiative was put forward,China’s agricultural trade with Europe has always been in a deficit position,and the trade imbalance in agricultural products is serious.The trade deficit in agricultural products with Europe has increased from US $1.17 billion in 2013 to US $12.18 billion in 2021.In addition,the tide of anti globalization in today’s world is surging,trade protectionism and unilateralism are intensifying,and international economic development is weakening,posing challenges to China and EU countries on a realistic level.Therefore,in order to optimize the structure of bilateral agricultural trade and promote the high-quality development of China’s agricultural market,the theme of"clarifying the competitiveness and trade potential of bilateral agricultural products" is highly worthy of exploration and research.This paper is based on the comparative advantage theory,factor endowment theory,intra industry trade theory and national competitive advantage theory.First,using the panel data of agricultural trade between China and the EU from 2002 to 2021,this paper analyzes the current situation of agricultural trade between China and the EU from three perspectives of trade scale,product structure and market structure.Secondly,through trade indicators such as trade integration index,intra industry trade index,explicit comparative advantage index,and trade complementarity index,we calculate the agricultural trade data between China and the EU over the years,exploring the practical basis for the potential of bilateral agricultural trade between China and the EU.Thirdly,the time-varying stochastic frontier Gravity model and trade inefficiency model are constructed to estimate the trade potential between China and EU countries on the basis of measuring trade efficiency and trade expansion space.At the same time,the relevant factors affecting the development of bilateral trade are also empirically analyzed.Finally,based on the research results,corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed.Both sides can enhance their trade potential by accelerating the construction of trade channels,strengthening cooperation mechanisms,and optimizing export structures.The research conclusions of this article are as follows:(1)The trade scale of agricultural products between China and Europe continues to expand,but China’s agricultural trade deficit with Europe is also increasing year by year.China mainly exports labor-intensive products such as animal and vegetable oil,aquatic products and fruit and vegetable products to the EU,and mainly imports capital intensive products such as meat,wine and beverages,and food products.The trade volume of agricultural products between China and the European Union is mainly distributed in Western European countries such as France,Spain,and the Netherlands.(2)China’s dependence on EU agricultural exports is higher than the EU’s dependence on China.The bilateral agricultural trade between China and Europe is mainly intra industry trade,and each country has different comparative advantages in products.The complementarity of agricultural trade structure is good.(3)At present,the potential for agricultural trade between China and EU countries has not been fully developed.China and the EU should further leverage factors such as investment freedom and trade freedom to promote bilateral agricultural trade,while minimizing the adverse effects of institutional distance and demand structure differences on bilateral agricultural trade.(4)The opening of the China Europe train has effectively integrated resources and has a significant promoting effect on bilateral agricultural product import and export trade,with a greater impact on import trade than on exports.The innovation of this article lies in:firstly,from the perspective of bilateral trade cooperation between China and Europe,it not only considers the trade situation of China’s exports of EU agricultural products,but also takes into account the import situation.Secondly,when constructing a trade inefficiency model,the China Europe freight train is taken into account as a dummy variable to measure its impact on China Europe agricultural product trade.