Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of China–Ghana Agricultural Product Trade

Abstract

As trade partners, China in Southeast Asia and Ghana in Africa both play a major role in the China–Africa economic and trade cooperation and have strengthened their bilateral trade. The trade cooperation between China and Ghana has progressed, and there currently exists a large agricultural product trade between the two countries. China has become one of Ghana’s largest trading partners in recent decades, and bilateral cooperation has become stronger. This paper analyses the comparative advantage and complementarity of trade in agricultural products between China and Ghana in terms of twenty major agricultural products from 2016 to 2020, based on the revealed comparative advantage index, trade complementarity index, and their status quo. The results showed that the trade volume of China–Ghana agricultural products has continuously increased, and China is currently in a surplus state, but their total agriculture trade volume proportions had been decreasing. From the perspective of comparative advantage and complementarity, the results showed that the comparative advantage and complementarity coexist, but their comparative advantage is more obvious showing strong competitiveness. The result further shows that the comparative advantage of Ghana was stronger than that of China and the complementarity of China’s exports and Ghana’s imports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited; likewise, the complementarity of China’s imports and Ghana’s exports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited since 2018, and there is a large potential for further cooperation and development. Finally, based on the current situation and our analysis of agricultural trade between China and Ghana, suggestions were put forward to seek new and continuous development opportunities for agricultural trade cooperation between the two countries.