Research On The Influencing Factors Of Intra-industry Trade In Agricultural Products Between China And RCEP Countries

The signing of RCEP provides a good opportunity to deepen openness and integration and promote regional integration to a higher level,which will help promote the trade of RCEP countries into a new stage of development.As a basic industry of the national economy,agriculture involves national food security and has always been protected to a high degree,so it has become an industry with a slower process of opening up international trade.At present,the deficit between China and RCEP countries in the field of agricultural products is expanding,from a surplus of 6.707 billion US dollars in2002 to a deficit of 14.183 billion yuan in 2021,the weak growth of agricultural exports relative to imports partly reflects the decline of China’s agricultural competitiveness.Therefore,how to improve the agricultural trade environment,speed up the "going out" of agricultural products and minimize the negative impact of trade protection on agricultural trade is an urgent issue for China.Unlike inter-industry trade,intra-industry trade can effectively reduce the adjustment cost of trade and ease trade frictions,thus promoting the competitiveness of foreign trade and the sustainable development of bilateral trade.Therefore,studying the development of intra-industry trade between China and RCEP countries is an important way to promote the healthy development of China’s agricultural trade and achieve win-win results for both sides.In this paper,the agricultural trade data of China and RCEP countries are obtained under the HS classification system,and the GL index,BI index,HIIT and VIIT index are used to measure the level and type of intra-industry trade between agricultural products from 2002 to 2021,and on this basis,the individual random-effects model of panel data is used to empirically analyze the influencing factors of the intra-industry trade of agricultural products of the two sides.The conclusions are as follows:(1)The level of trade between China and RCEP countries in the agricultural product industry is low,but it has improved in recent years,and the effect on the total and incremental trade of agricultural products of both sides is increasing.(2)The intra-industry trade level of agricultural products between China and RCEP member countries has large national differences,and the intra-industry trade level with Vietnam is high,and the intra-industry trade level with other countries is in a low state,but the intra-industry trade level of agricultural products in most countries shows an upward trend.(3)There are also great differences between China and RCEP countries in the level of intra-industry trade in different categories of agricultural products,among which nearly half of the chapters and categories of agricultural products are mainly intra-industry trade.(4)The type of intraindustry trade in agricultural products of the two sides is mainly vertical,that is,agricultural products differ greatly in quality.(5)The empirical test results show that the impact of market size,trade imbalance and geographical distance on the trade of agricultural products between the two sides is significant.To this end,this paper puts forward suggestions to improve the international competitiveness of agricultural products,narrow the trade deficit of agricultural products,promote the development of agricultural product logistics industry,promote the implementation of the RCEP agreement,and improve the multilateral agricultural cooperation mechanism.