Competitiveness or Complementarity? A Dynamic Network Analysis of International Agri-Trade along the Belt and Road

• Published in: Applied spatial analysis and policy Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. 349 - 374
• Main Authors: Liu, Chengliang, Xu, Jiaqi, Zhang, Hong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural development; Competition; Human Geography; Indexes; International cooperation; International trade; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; Networks; Regional/Spatial Science; Social Sciences; Trade; Agri-trade; Complementarity; Modularity; Network analysis; Competitiveness
• ISSN: 1874-463X; 1874-4621
• DOI: 10.1007/s12061-019-09307-5

The proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative has created new opportunities for agricultural product trading. In this study, we conduct an empirical analysis of the competitiveness and complementarity of agri-trade among countries in the region by constructing dynamic networks based on the Export Similarity Index and Trade Complementarity Index from 2005 to 2016. The results indicate that competitiveness and complementarity came to coexist within 10 years and the density of both competitiveness and complementarity network increased; overall, complementarity was greater than competitiveness. The assortativity and disassortativity of competitiveness and complementarity also coexisted in agri-trade; country pairs with high complementarity in the region increased during the study period, indicating that there are more opportunities for cooperation among countries; there are three important competitive blocks and an important complementary block in the network. One competitive block was led by China, including countries with developed basic agriculture (e.g., Egypt). The other two were composed of countries in Central East Europe and West Asia & Middle East as well as several Southeast Asian countries. Countries in the important complementary block were mainly from CEE and WA & ME in 2005, with some Southeast and South Asian countries joining by 2016.