| China turned into one of the most opened markets for agricultural products after her access to WTO and follow-up market opening. In the context of new trends and situations in global agricultural product competition and in order to enhance the competitiveness of Chinese agricultural products, it is crucial to review China’s agricultural products trade as compared with global agricultural trade, evaluate the changes and trends of global agricultural trade, work out strategies for China to participate in the world competition, add more technology and value to agricultural products, and improve the trade conditions.China grew from a net agricultural products importer into a net exporter due to her weak competitiveness in some important commodities and insufficient infrastructure for farming. For example, some resources produce such as wheat, soybean, palm oil and natural rubber, accounts for major shares in China’s import and is crucial to maintain economic growth. On the contrary, less value addition and lower prices of China’s important export products, such as processed vegetables and beans, where China enjoys less edge, account for bigger shares in total agricultural export. It is critical and is still a long way to go to improve the competitiveness of China’s high value agricultural products.China’s agriculture not only faces cutting-throat domestic competitions but also competes in complex international environments. Competitiveness in farm produce plays much importance to China’s agriculture and economy. Studies from China and abroad involve with various fields, methodologies and theories; however, at least three issues need further study:(1) constraints to competitiveness caused by insufficient factors market;(2) constraints to competitiveness from China’s scattered farm ownership; and (3) roles of farming organizations and governments to agricultural competitiveness.China’s agriculture now is facing challenges from at least three fieds.(1) China is losing its edge in cost and geographic vicinity due to globalization, modern logistic technology and new occurrence in import markets.(2) The internationalization of local markets of China, including farming, circulation and consumption, brings local farmers and entities face to face with international competition. And (3) China’edge in comparative advantage is being crippled by increasing labor costs and growth in manufacturing and service. In terms of competiveness, the scattered farmland owners do not parallel the overseas rivalries based on modern agricultural production, which ends with deficit in international agricultural trade. Increased competitiveness and volume of advantage products help to turn this situation to a favorable one. To do so requires deregulation of market competition, improving efficiency and quality of production as well as economic growth. Therefore analyses on factors contributing to agricultural competitiveness and the strategies for China concluded carry with them strong theoretical and practical importance.This thesis begins with analyses on global agricultural trade, its trends and characteristics, and factors contributing to agricultural competitiveness, followed by examples and case study of enhancing farming competiveness in various countries. This thesis concludes with suggestion to governments to enhance competitiveness according to the fact that scattered small farm owners account for the vast majority of China’s farming.This theis employes positive and comparative analyses basing on public data and stuff, for example, in researching Asian farming mode and industrial policies, soybean and rice costs analysis between China and United States, practices of Japan, R. Korea, India, Thailand and Israel. Case studies are used to analyze China’s competiveness in apple juice, cooperative for small farmers and value chains.In the light of above work, the thesis breaks down into7parts, including:Chapter One, Introduction, introduces the background, meaning and revies and sum-up of the theorey and study in topics.Chapter Two, Content and Mode for International Competitiveness Analayses, discusses concept and theory of international trade, transaction cost, global value chain and theretical interpreration of cooperative advantagethe as well as definitions, modelling and factors of agricultural competitiveness and comparative advantage.Chapter Three, Global Trade and Its Trends, explores the volume, structure, characteristics of exporting countries, relations between exports and development and factor attributes as well as environments and factors in global agricultural product trade.Chapter Four, Method and Ways to Improve Agricultural Competitiveness in Various Countries, introduces practices to improve competitiveness, including business strategies, agricultural cooperatives, FDI, and role of governments.Chapter Five, China’s Agriculture and Its Competitiveness, discusses the characteristics of China’s farming, the major challenges, case studies for economy of scale through cooperatives and vale chain management. In the light of analyses on the product structure, geographic patterns, trade partners, market players, this chapter concludes with the status, characteristics and sources of China’s edge in agricultural products as well as strategies to sharpen its competitiveness.Chapter Six, Policies and Methods to Enhance China’s Competiveness in Agricultural Products, suggests that competitiveness be achieved by upgrading facilities and infrastructure for farming, capacity building for businesses in agricultural sector, deregulation of rural finance, improvement in market environment and boosting outflow foreign direct investment. Governments can play a vital role in this respect.Chapter Seven briefs some important findings and innovations of the thesis.The thesis assumes that:1) As China is still a transitional economy, the mal-functioning mechanism in agricultural production and circulation, particularly in terms of rural finance and supply of public goods, acts as one of the major barriers to China competitiveness in agricultural products;2) the vast majority of players in Chinese market are scattered small farmland owners and traders who face direct international competition with limited, if any, governmental support;3) according to the practices in various countries, structure and organization of farming contribute much to the domestic and international competitiveness of agriculture, while governments play a critical role to it.The thesis concludes with the following suggestions:(1) Strongly promoting agriculture and agricultural technologies, improving public and quasi-public goods in farming sector and boosting agriculture as a business.(2) Capacity building and fair competition strategies for agri-business and exporters.(3) Boosting rural cooperative finance and deregulation on rural finance.(4) Improving agricultural market by increasing its transparency and tracing system, and switching the focus for market supervision from business to supply chain.(5) Strongly Promoting farming organizations and cooperatives.(6) Faciliating outflow foreign direct investment to gain advantage in international competition.Highlights about the thesis:1) An overall analysis on global agricultural products trade, a classification of exporting countries according to its comparative and competitive advantage and the connection between the classification and agricultural trade.2) An overall analysis on structure, advantage, competiveness and its determining factors of China’s competitiveness in agricultural products. 3) Different from most papers and thesis in agricultural study, this thesis pays special attention to the fundamentals and small farmland ownerships in China’s agriculture, and the conflicts between small farmers and market competition as well as some pragmatic suggestion and strategies to improve competitiveness focusing on the scattered small farmland ownership in China.4) Research and demonstrate the advantage of cooperative in creating customer value, rural financing and value chain management, as well as fundamentals and guidelines to manage successful agricultural cooperatives, which are key to competitiveness.5) Emphasize the importance of public and quasi-public goods, and infrastructures for agriculture logistics and trading to agricultural competitiveness.6) An analysis on the situation FDI outflow in agriculture and its importance to China’s farming sector.Weakness of the thesis and issues that need further study:1) A deep research yet to do on structure of global agricultural products trade, flow and relations with factor attribution, comparative advantage, competitive advantage.2) A comprehensive research on agricultural value chain management and strategies of major players in global agricultural trade.3) More research is needed to identify and analyze the advantage of China’s farm produce and agricultural products.4) Opportunities, challenges, threaten and constraints facing China’s small farmland owners as well as the political, economic, social and cultural constraints to the development of agricultural cooperatives in China.5) As to FDI outflow of China, more analysis is needed to understand the driving factors and limitation that may be relevant to the FDI outflow. |
PDF Full Text Request