An Analysis Of Factors Influencing Tanzania Exporting Of Agricultural Goods To China

Located in eastern Africa,the United Republic of Tanzania has a single structure and low level of development.It is one of the 48 least developed countries announced by the United Nations.Its foreign exchange earnings mainly come from agriculture.In 2009,the Tanzanian government implemented the concept of "agriculture first"development.In 2011,agriculture was regarded as the main area to attract foreign investment.However,in recent years,the export volume of agricultural products in Tanzania has declined sharply.Tanzania should seize the "China Opportunity" and deepen the agricultural trade and cooperation between China and Tanzania.Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1964,China and Tanzania have been playing an important leading role in China-Africa relations.Tanzania is a member of the African Union(AU),the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa(COMESA),the East African Community(EAC)and the Southern African Development Community(SADC).In 1995,it took another important step to join the WTO.Tanzania receives China’s assistance in infrastructure,agriculture and other fields,and is the largest beneficiary of Africa.Since 2014,China has unilaterally granted 97%of Tanzania’s imports duty-free treatment.Tanzania is also a member of WTO.It is one of the 40 least developed countries that China has granted tariff-free treatment.It enjoys preferential tariff rates on its exports.Bilateral trade is affected by tariffs,non-tariff barriers,economic scale,exchange rate,trade openness and many other factors.Since the 1990s,several forms of regional economic integration,such as customs unions and free trade agreements,have been developed.The tariff level has remained at a relatively low level.WTO regards the reform of trade facilitation worldwide as a new impetus to stimulate a new round of trade growth.Against this background,China actively implements the strategy of "free trade zone" and "one belt and one way" strategy.The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in 2015 and the China International Import Exposition held in 2018 have had a profound impact on China-Tanzania agricultural cooperation,which is a once-in-a-lifetime policy dividend and opportunity for Tanzania’s agricultural development and trade in agricultural products.Based on the above considerations,this study intends to focus on the influencing factors of Tanzania’s agricultural exports to China by taking China-Tanzania agricultural trade as the research phenomenon,with the purpose of exploring how to enhance Tanzania’s agricultural exports to China.The results not only have prominent practical significance for the implementation of Tanzania’s "agriculture first"development strategy and the important issues of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation,but also have clear practical value for the development of China-Tanzania agricultural trade.This thesis paper contains five chapters.Its first chapter is the introduction.On this part it gives a brief review of the background,the significance of the study as well as the definition of the some key concepts.The second part is the theoretical basis and literature review.The third part discusses Tanzania’s agricultural trade situation,analyses Tanzania’s agricultural development status,its contribution to world agricultural trade,the main categories of import and export products,the characteristics and problems of Tanzania’s agricultural export trade to China.The fourth part is an important part of this paper.Empirical analysis is made on the main influencing factors of Tanzania’s agricultural exports to China.Using gravity model and time series panel data of the three Great Lakes countries in Africa as samples,this paper introduces the gross domestic product of the exporting countries,the gross domestic product of the importing countries,the size difference of the countries,the fluctuation range of exchange rate,inflation,the distance between import and export countries,the agricultural sector employment rate of exporting countries and the FDI inflows of the exporting countries.Then it use eight factors into the model in-depth analysis of Tanzania’s export determinants.It is found that export volume is positively correlated with GDP,size and exchange rate,but negatively correlated with inflation and FDI.Tanzania’s agricultural exports to China are also subject to customs clearance procedures and regulatory restrictions.The fifth part is the countermeasures and conclusion.