Growth of Agricultural Trade between China and South Korea:A Study on Characteristics and Contributing Factors

Despite that the agricultural trade between China and South Korea is continually expanding,agricultural trade has become a sensitive issue in China-South Korea FTA negotiations.Based on 1990-2012 trade data from UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database,this paper analyzes the contributing factors of the growth of China-South Korea agricultural trade from the perspectives of market demand effect,export structure effect and competitiveness effect by using the CMS model(Constant Market Share).The findings suggest that the market demand effect is the primary stimulating factor for the trade growth;the export structure effect restrains trade growth,and the restraining effect is intensified by the mismatch between the agricultural export structure of South Korea and China's consumption structure;the competitiveness effect reinforces China's export increase to South Korea,while the competitive advantage is not lasting and stable,and the fall in the competitiveness of the South Korean agricultural products leads to its declining export.In order to expand the scale of trade in agricultural products and improve the quality of trade,this paper suggests that the two countries should dwell on consumer demand to adjust the export structure,strengthen agricultural cooperation and exchanges,expand exports of complementary agricultural products,promote China's agricultural production scale and intensiveness,and materialize the transformation from pricing competitiveness to non-price competitiveness.China is also advised to readily learn from the US-South Korea FTA agricultural trade terms and optimize the negotiating guidelines.