AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS, AGRICULTURAL IMPORTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA

Abstract

Since the beginning of the third millennium, the Chinese agricultural exports increase at a strong pace. In this context, this paper aims to answer the question if the agriculture trade promotes Chinese economic growth by employing the ARDL bounds testing for the study period from 1984 to 2017. In the long run, our highlights reported that domestic investment and agricultural exports have a positive effect on economic growth. However, agricultural imports have a significant negative impact on growth. In the short run, our insights reported a positive and significant effect of domestic investment, agricultural imports, and agricultural exports on economic growth. The positive impact of agriculture exports on growth is due to the importance of agriculture in terms of creating jobs and opportunities for the economy. Therefore, sufficient national investment in the agriculture sector tends to enlarge these opportunities and then improves Chinese economic growth.