Abstract:
【Objective/Meaning】In the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, the characteristics of the agricultural product trade between the 5 South Pacific island countries(Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu) and Australia were studied, so as to promote the economic development of the island countries and deepen the multilateral trade cooperation.【Methods/Procedures】By using the UN Comtrade database and based on the HS code(Chapter 1~24), the status quo of the agricultural product trade between the 5 South Pacific island countries and Australia was described from the aspects of trade scale and trade structure and so on, and then the features of agricultural product trade were analyzed by measuring the indexes of export specialization(ES), revealed comparative advantage(RCA), trade complementarity index(TCI) and intra-industry trade(GL). Last, the development bottlenecks were analyzed to obtain the policy suggestions.【Results/Conclusions】The research found that the agricultural product trade between the 5 island countries and Australia was of small scale and single structure, mainly import-based, and susceptible to various factors. The 5 island countries should make full use of their fishery advantages and strengthen the cooperation with Australia. And the agricultural product trade between China and the 5 island countries should be precisely positioned to promote the sound competition and cooperation relationship between China and Australia, so as to jointly promote the agricultural development of the South Pacific island countries.