The Impact of Land Transportation Infrastructure on China's Agricultural Imports under the Belt and Road Initiative:Evidence from the China-Europe Railway Express
The China-Europe Railway Express serves as a demonstration model of China's infrastructure construction in promoting high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initia-tive.In the face of multiple risks,such as the pandemic and disrupted maritime transportation,land transportation represented by the China-Europe Railway Express plays an essential role in ensuring the stable operation of the agricultural industry supply chain along the Belt and Road.Based on the operational status of the China-Europe Railway Express and the agricultural product trade statistics,this paper adopts a time-varying stochastic frontier gravity model to analyze the agricultural trade efficiency and trade potential between China and countries along the route.It is expected to provide theoretical and empirical support for China to better utilize the agri-cultural product market and resources along the Belt and Road and further ensure the stable supply of food and important agricultural products.The results show that the opening of the China-Europe Railway Express has significantly improved China's import efficiency of agricultural prod-uct from countries along the route.Further research reveals that China's agricultural product trade efficiencies across countries along the route has significant differences,with higher import efficien-cies from countries such as Russia,Mongolia,and the Netherlands.At the same time,there is con-siderable room for expansion in agricultural product trade between China and countries along the route,with an average trade potential expandable to 2.32 times the actual import value,particularly for imports from Ukraine,Germany,Spain,France,and the United Kingdom.
China-Europe Railway ExpressLand transportationTrade facilitationThe Belt and Road InitiativeAgricultural imports
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