The Impact of Technical Barriers to Trade on China’ s Agricultural Exports: Empirical Analysis Based on The Belt and Road Initiative Countries

This paper illustrates the TBT situation along The Belt and Road Initiative and estimates the impact of these TBT measures to Chinese agricultural export from 2004 to 2018. The results show that: (1) TBT notification in West Asia Region is the most active, with strict requirements on dairy products, meat products and other food standards. Southeast Asian countries lies the next place, while they emphasis the label design of alcoholic beverages, the inspection and quarantine of fresh fruits, poultry and other products, as well as the mode of transportation. There are relatively less TBT notification in South Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. (2) According to the estimation of trade gravity model, agricultural exports to The Belt and Road Initiative Countries will reduce by 0.003 percentage if TBT increase by 1 percent. Therefore, it is suggested to establish the The and Road Initiative TBT database, and promote the mutual recognition and consultation mechanism of technical standards, and guide enterprises to actively deal with TBT.