중국 농업의 구조변화와 한·중 농산물 교역 전망

Abstract

한·중 수교 이후 양국간 농산물 교역이 크게 확대된 가운데 일부 농산물 품목류는 국내 수급 물량의 일정 부분을 중국산이 충당할 정도로 우리나라 농업에 대한 중국 농업의 영향력이 한층 심화되었다. 이러한 와중에 세계적으로 지역무역협정이 확산되는 추세에 맞추어 한·중 양국은 FTA 협상 추진도 고려하고 있는 상황이다.

대표적인 무역이론인 비교우위론에 근거할 때 중국 농업에 비해 비교열위에 있는 우리나라 농업은 무역자유화를 추구하는 한·중 FTA가 체결되면 다른 어떤 분야보다도 커다란 피해가 예상된다. 특히 중국의 농업생산구조가 우리와 유사하여 양국간 농산물 교역은 보완구조의 형성이 쉽지 않아 중국 농산물의 우리나라 시장에 대한 수출특화가 지속될 가능성이 크다.

그러나 최근 들어 중국 농업이 성장 단계상 노동생산성이 성장을 주도하는 국면으로 전환되고 있고, 중간투입재에 대한 의존도가 높은 농업으로 변화하고 있는 점은 시사하는 바가 크다. 향후 생산요소 가격의 상승으로 고생산비 구조가 고착화되면 중국 농산물의 수출경쟁력도 약화될 가능성이 커지고 이는 중국의 농산물 수출 확대에 영향을 미칠 수 있기 때문이다.

이 연구는 한·중 FTA 협상 추진이 점차 가시화되고 있는 상황에서 한 국가의 농업구조 변화가 미치는 대내외적인 파급영향에 착안하여 중국 농업의 구조변화의 방향성을 파악하고 이와 연계하여 한·중 농산물 교역의 변화를 전망하는 데 초점을 두고 추진되었다.

Agricultural trade between Korea and China shows a clear one-way trade from China to Korea and consists mainly of inter-industry trade. The products available to intra-industry trade are rare with the exception of several processed foods. This overwhelmingly unbalanced trade structure makes it difficult for the two countries to avoid severe competition and build a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship in agricultural sector, and is not expected to change in the near future. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and China in 1992, the share of grain in their bilateral agricultural trade has decreased, but the shares of vegetables and processed foods have increased. The pattern will set in because grain trade is quite restrictive to the supply and demand in the Chinese domestic market and most of fruits, vegetables, and livestock products trade are not allowed to trade because of inspection and quarantine barriers, which is not expected to be completely removed in the near future. The implications from our analyses on relevant issues in the agricultural trade structure between Korea and China are summarized as follows: First, Chinese agriculture is now on the stage of labor productivity-led growth and changes its production structure to the one relying on intermediate inputs gradually. Hence, the rises of input prices including agricultural wage and land rent are likely to threaten the price competitiveness of Chinese agricultural export. Second, China is a young market economy and the economy is not yet sophisticated enough due to the government's frequent interventionist economic policies. Most of all, China still clings to the socialist system in politics. Thus, resource allocation in Chinese agricultural sector would be distorted by other factors rather than market principles. In this case, the prospect that the structural change in Chinese agriculture will follow a stylized path, through which developed countries already passed, will lead to a mistaken prediction of its change and then fail to properly act in the light of Korean agricultural sector. Third, the two countries have a similar production structure and a development course of agriculture, but also have distinctive resource endowments and growth stages, which led to the current overwhelming one-way trade that is expected to leave not much room for a complementary relation in the near future. It is necessary to find constructive cooperation plans between the trading partners towards co-prosperity under a more liberalized trade in the future, focusing on the establishment of a specialization system reflecting their comparative advantages in agricultural production.

Researchers: Hyoung-Jin Jeon, Myong-Keun Eor and Min-JI Nam E-mail address: hjchon@krei.re.kr