Study On The Impact Of Trade Facilitation For Countries Along The Belt And Road On China’s Agricultural Products Trade

In recent years,with the development of economic globalization and various bilateral,multilateral and regional negotiations,the traditional international trade barriers have been weakened and the trade between countries has grown rapidly.However,due to the differences of legal systems,the lack of transparency,the complexity of customs clearance and other issues,there are still many obstacles in international trade activities,and as a hidden barrier,this "trade inefficiency" is hindering international trade.Especially after the global economic crisis in 2008,the economic downturn in various countries has had a negative impact on international trade,the urgency of trade facilitation has attracted the attention of governments and international organizations.Many countries are actively promoting trade facilitation to remove trade barriers,reduce transaction costs and maximize the openness of international trade.In 2013,president Xi Jinping put forward the Belt and Road strategy during his visit to the Central Asia and Southeast Asian countries.After more than three years of development,countries along the Belt and Road have become China’s important trade partner.Agricultural products trade has been the main business event since the Silk Road times,and now agricultural cooperation is a common aspiration of the countries along the Belt and Road.Agricultural products have short shell-lives,and a nation’s level of trade facilitation could have a great impact on trade.Therefore,it is very important to enhance the level of trade facilitation in order to promote agricultural products trade between China and countries along the Belt and Road.Based on the concept of trade facilitation and related theories,this paper analyzes the current situation of agricultural products trade between China and countries along the Belt and Road,measures the level of trade facilitation of these countries,and then uses the gravitational model to analyze the impact of countries along the Belt and Road to China’s agricultural products trade,and finally put forward the relevant countermeasures and suggestions according to the conclusions.This paper is structured into six chapters.The first chapter is an introduction,which mainly describes the background,significance and structure of this paper,the research method,and the existing literature of trade facilitation.Finally,summarizes the innovations and shortcomings of this paper.The second chapter is the related concept and the theoretical basis.This part briefly introduces the development process of trade facilitation in WTO and APEC.Secondly,it summarizes the different definitions of "trade facilitation" given by international organizations.Finally,it describes the relevant theory of the trade facilitation.The third chapter analyzes the situation of China’s agricultural trade with countries along the Belt and Road from three aspects of overall trade scale,product structure and market distribution.The fourth chapter is the construction of the comprehensive index system of trade facilitation.In this chapter,14 secondary indicators are selected from four aspects:institutional environment,infrastructure,custom environment and information technology.Main component analysis method is used to build trade facilitation indicators through statal2.0.Then comparatively analyzes the trade facilitation levels of China and countries along the Belt and Road.The fifth chapter is the empirical analysis.This chapter mainly uses the gravitational model to study the influence of these countries’ trade facilitation level on the agricultural products trade and analyze the results.The sixth chapter is the main conclusion and policy suggestion.This part summarizes the previous research results and puts forward some suggestions on how to improve trade facilitation level and promote the development of China’s agricultural products trade with countries along the Belt and Road.The results of this paper show that the trade facilitation level of countries along the Belt and Road have the greatest effect on China’s agricultural products trade,and the trade volume of agricultural products will increase by 2.2254%for every 1%increase in the level of trade facilitation.But the impact of each trade facilitation indicators on China’s agricultural products trade is different.The impact of infrastructure on the trade volume of agricultural products is greatest,followed by information technology and regulation environment,and the impact of the customs environment is minimal.These countries’agricultural added value,per capita GDP,population size and whether the two countries border,whether to sign a free trade agreement have the significant and positive impact on China’s agricultural trade,but the distance between China and the countries along the Belt and Road hinder the agricultural trade.The innovation of this paper lies in:Firstly,the previous studies on the impact of trade facilitation on agricultural products trade mainly concentrated in the ASEAN countries,Central Asia,or Mongolia,Russia and other countries,but there are no studies focused on the impact of trade facilitation of countries along the Belt and Road on China’s agricultural products trade.This paper starts from this point to research.Secondly,an "agricultural policy cost" was chosen when selecting the indicators to measure the level of trade facilitation,which is related to agricultural products,which makes trade facilitation more closely related to agricultural products trade.