Selecting Method of Sensitive Agricultural Products in FTA Negotiations Focused on Food Crops, Animal Products, Dairy Products in RCEP Negotiation

The selection of sensitive agricultural products is a necessary and important part of Free Trade Agreement(FTA) negotiations due to its consequential impacts on agricultural markets of the country. However, there is no standard method to select sensitive agricultural products because the agricultural sectors of FTA partner countries are different. Therefore, selecting sensitive agricultural products is difficult and has to consider various economic factors including potential ripple effects in the previous FTAs, which are already signed and implemented. This study presented a method for selecting sensitive agricultural products in RCEP negotiations using 20 items of food crops, livestock products, and dairy products. This study selected sensitive agricultural products based on three factors: 1) the export potential in consideration of the competitiveness (RCA, MCA) of the partner country of negotiations; 2) the tariff protection index of previous FTAs and the import dependence rate of the FTA partner country; and 3) the amount of domestic production. The results of this study indicated that rice, barley, sweet potato, mung bean, red bean, beef, and honey are expected to be major sensitive products, while potato, corn, and pork are expected to be less sensitive in RCEP negotiations. These results are interesting because barley, sweet potato, mung bean, red bean, honey should be less sensitive products than pork and duck based on the amount of domestic production. However, the former items should be more sensitive products in RCEP negotiations than the items with a high amount of domestic production based on the consideration of partner country’s competitiveness and potential ripple effects associated with the previous FTAs.