General

To promote the development of international trade, on June 26th, the first cold chain international train for agricultural product exports, China (Zhengzhou) - ASEAN (Vietnam) Agricultural Product Export Special Train, launched in Henan, China Railway Union Zhengzhou Central Station. This special train carries a total of 6 containers of garlic and 29 containers of onions, with a value of 3.6 million yuan. It will exit through the Pingxiang Port and eventually arrive in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

According to customs data, from January to May, China's agricultural product exports reached 39.86 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 3.3%. Among them, vegetable exports reached 7.61 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.0%; The export volume of edible vegetable oil reached 73000 tons, an increase of 4.1%.

According to the 2023 Observation of International Trade Practice of China's Agricultural Enterprises released by IResearch Consulting Group, with the competitiveness of China's agricultural products and processed products gradually increasing, the demand of enterprises to expand external markets and improve the added value of products continues to increase, many agricultural enterprises actively seek to open international trade business channels, and China's agriculture has gradually deepened its integration into the global industrial circulation, with more categories.

Acceleration at sea

National policies and international agricultural cooperation environment have added support for agricultural enterprises to go overseas, guiding China's international economic and trade cooperation in agricultural products to shift from focusing on "quantity" to focusing on "quality". In the process of reform and opening up, agriculture is the main area in which China has made significant commitments to join the World Trade Organization. With the full implementation and effectiveness of RCEP, measures such as unifying rules of origin, lowering market access barriers for service trade, adopting negative list management for investment access, and promoting industrial investment liberalization will continue to release dividends, bringing significant benefits to the establishment of a large agricultural regional market.

After a series of agricultural "going global" cooperation and project construction, many scientific research, public welfare, and market entities in China's agricultural field have laid a certain foundation in establishing foreign cooperation and reaching overseas markets. The existing Chinese overseas production and processing bases, warehousing and logistics projects, overseas agricultural cooperation parks, international marketing teams, and overseas agricultural enterprises that have completed mergers and acquisitions will also provide valuable resources for new agricultural enterprises to borrow ships and go to sea.

In order to help agricultural enterprises better integrate into the international agricultural market, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has promoted the cultivation plan for international agricultural service trade. It has launched the construction of a national comprehensive experimental zone for agricultural open development and a high-quality development base for agricultural international trade (referred to as the "Agricultural International Trade Base"), which has initially formed a platform carrier for further deepening the opening up of the agricultural trade field. Taking two batches of agricultural international trade bases that have been evaluated and publicized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs as samples, IResearch Consulting Group analyzed the development context and development needs of Chinese enterprises engaged in the import and export business of agricultural products and processed products, and divided the sample enterprises into four categories: transformation, characteristic cluster, large supplier and foreign-related products for observation.

For agricultural enterprises, IResearch Consulting Group suggests optimizing production, processing, logistics, warehousing, marketing and other links by digital means to improve the efficiency of international operations. From the comparison of four types of overseas agricultural enterprises, the digital application level of large supplier entities is the highest, especially in production and processing, warehousing and storage, quality inspection management, marketing and other links. The digital application level of characteristic cluster entities in early breeding and seedling cultivation, planting and breeding is relatively high, and there is significant room for improvement in the digital level of other links. In recent years, entities involved in transformation and foreign-related products have developed a certain awareness of technological transformation and digital transformation of production lines. However, due to factors such as upgrade costs, scheduling pressure, and understanding of digital technology, the overall digital progress is relatively slow. In general, agricultural enterprises can further strengthen the application of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, artificial intelligence, Big data, and realize the fine management of the whole process.

From the perspective of external environment, IResearch Consulting Group suggests improving the international competitiveness of commercial arbitration to "escort" agricultural enterprises to the sea. In the export business of agricultural products and their processed products, international arbitration disputes arising from differences in language, local policies and regulations, and document delivery systems cannot be ignored. With the support and guidance of the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and local departments at all levels, overseas agricultural enterprises actively benchmark international industry standards and adapt to overseas target markets, improving their awareness and ability to prevent and control international market risks. However, the occurrence of international trade frictions is still inevitable. Once a commercial dispute occurs, international commercial arbitration or continuation for several years will not only have a certain impact on the goodwill, business development, and liquidity stability of agricultural enterprises going to sea, but also reduce the willingness of overseas merchants to cooperate with Chinese enterprises. "From the perspective of international arbitration practice in the agricultural field, China's judicial system still has room for improvement in the accumulation of precedents in dealing with agricultural international trade disputes of private enterprises, and the performance experience of international arbitration institutions in relevant fields is also inferior to that of Europe, America, Japan, South Korea and other agricultural internationalization pioneer countries." IResearch Consulting Group pointed out that only by further improving the commercial arbitration process, promoting international exchange of commercial arbitration, accumulating and forming typical precedents in many fields To enhance the reputation and influence of Chinese judicial talents in the international judicial system, we can better safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant parties in agricultural international trade, and provide more agricultural enterprises with the willingness to go to sea with a "reassurance".