Competitive Advantages of China’s Agricultural Exports in the Outward-Looking Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

Development of export potential is a factor in increasing a country’s competitiveness in the global market. Contemporary China’s outward-looking economic and trade policy focuses on the development of an open, rule-based, and predictable trading system in Eurasia within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Along with better access for Chinese products to the markets of neighboring countries, the BRI is considered a tool to diversify export flows from China. Chapter 14 develops an approach to the identification of competitive and non-competitive products in China’s agricultural export portfolio. It analyzes changes in comparative and competitive advantages in China’s agricultural trade for 1995rtd2015. A five-step analysis reveals comparative advantages in exports using the Balassa index, discovers competitive advantages in both exports and imports using the Vollrath index, and compares comparative and competitive advantages and weighting for each product’s contribution to China’s export portfolio using the Lafay index. The chapter concludes by grouping agricultural and food products according to their degree of competitiveness and differentiates policy measures that support, promote, develop, or establish a competitive advantage in implementing the BRI.