The study attempts to conduct a comparative analysis of the competitiveness of agricultural products between Korea and China caused by the signing of the FTA in 2015 and the novel coronavirus in 2020 and draws complementary issues in this regard, which are different from the existing studies.
Existing studies related to Korea-China agricultural products focus on the production and exchange of agricultural products as well as the feasibility of establishing a Korea-China free trade area.
Taking agricultural products as research objects, the paper divides them into categories 1-4 (Chapters 1-24) according to the HS code division rule. Using the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), trade competitive advantage index (TC), trade complementarity index (TCI), Grubel-Lloyd index (G-L), and other data, the competitiveness and complementarity of agricultural products between Korea and China are examined in detail.
The conclusion shows that China's RCA index has relatively increased since 2015, but has begun to decline since 2020. Second, the TC index of Korea and China also remained stable around 2015. China’s TC index continued to fluctuate slightly until 2019 and has fallen since then, which also led to the downward adjustment of its TC index. Third, as a result of the TCI index, Korea-China agricultural trade complementarity is relatively high. Fourth, the G-L index between Korea and China has been on the rise since 2015, and the complementarity has decreased, but since 2019, the G-L index has fallen and the complementarity has increased.
The paper provides the following insights. First, Korea must identify new, competitive varieties that can gain access into the domestic market. Second, as an impact of the new coronavirus, there is an increased need to fortify the cooperation between the two governments. Third, it’s necessary for Korea and China to overcome international trade protectionism in the agricultural sector.