Research On Trade Competitiveness And Complementarity Of Agricultural Products Between Thailand And China

Since Thailand and China are two of the largest exporters of world’s agricultural products, they are playing a more significant role in Asian agriculture, particularly in 2015 when the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement(ACFTA)got launched, and which is also the 40 th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between two countries.Thailand-China agricultural trade has grown rapidly, with closer agricultural trade and cooperation between two countries. Due to geographical proximity, similar resources and the common situation that both countries are undergoing a rapid economic growth, Thailand and China share similarity in terms of exported goods. This essay illustrates and analyzes agricultural trade between Thailand and China from the perspective of revealed comparative advantage(RCA), market share(MS), and the export similarity index(XS).First, the essay compares the current situation of Thailand’s agricultural trade with that of China’s, and analyzes the general situation of the agricultural trade of both countries, respectively. It investigates the situation by undertaking a qualitative research on primary exported goods and markets for primary exports.Second, it calculates and analyzes the competitiveness of Thailand’s and China’s agricultural products by adopting different standards from approximation to detail according to the HS code, together with Balassa’s RCA and MS.Third, it calculates the similarities between Thailand’s and China’s agricultural exported products in accordance with XS. In addition, it analyzes trade complementarity of Thailand and China when they export goods to another market from the main exported market of Thailand and China.Finally, it concludes the previous analyses and calculations, indicating that ThailandChina agricultural trade relies mainly on complementarity supplemented by competitiveness which tends to decelerate, while complementarity is more intense.