Abstract:

China is a leading asparagus producer in the world, with the largest planting area and yield. China’s asparagus industry has developed into an emerging industry with competitive advantages and plays an important role in the global asparagus trade. To study the international trade and industrial competitiveness of asparagus in China, we used the asparagus trade data of FAO, WTO and China Customs (general trade), to analyze the present situation of China’s asparagus import and export trade, and selected four analysis indexes, including producer’s price, international market share, trade competitiveness index and export price ratio, to evaluate the industrial competitiveness of China's asparagus industry. The results showed that China’s asparagus trade is mainly export, which has been in a trade surplus. Since 2008, the import has increased rapidly, and the import-export gap has been significantly narrowed. In 2019, the import quantity was 1/3 of the export quantity, and the value of import exceeded that of export. In terms of asparagus price, China’s asparagus production cost and production price are low, occupying an advantage, but the export unit price and the value of export are relatively low, and the export earning of foreign exchange is not significant. Since 2013, the import unit price has risen rapidly, and has exceeded the export unit price. The imported asparagus is expensive, the asparagus import will not increase significantly in the future, and the export will remain stable. Among the international asparagus exporting countries, Peru and Mexico are basically net exporting countries, with strong trade competitiveness; Greece is the second with a high competitiveness index; and the United States, Spain and the Netherlands also have obvious advantages. China is the largest asparagus producer in the world, but its international market share is not high. When the trade competitiveness index is positive, it is close to 1, and the value of export far exceeds that of import, reflecting that China’s asparagus has strong competitiveness in the domestic market, but has relatively weak competitiveness in the international market.

Key words: asparagus trade, China, import and export, industrial competitiveness