Guangxi is located in the southwest region of China, bordering with Vietnam by land and sea, and is the gateway of China to ASEAN, with remarkable location advantages, but relatively backward economy. Vietnam, as a member of the new four ASEAN countries, joins ASEAN relatively late and its economic volume is in the middle level among the ten ASEAN countries.
Guangxi and Vietnam are relatively similar in terms of geographical environment, production technology and population scale, and agricultural trade has a pivotal position in the foreign trade of both sides. This paper takes China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) as the research background, based on the agricultural trade data between Guangxi and Vietnam from 2010 to 2020,the competitiveness and complementarity of agricultural products between Guangxi and Vietnam are analyzed empirically by using the revealed comparative advantage index (RCA), the export similarity index (ESI) and the trade complementarity index (TCI),and the trend and characteristics of the competitiveness and complementarity of agricultural products between Guangxi and Vietnam are discussed. The study finds that: CAFTA plays a positive role in promoting the rapid development of bilateral trade in agricultural products between Guangxi and Vietnam, and since the completion of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) in 2010, the trade in agricultural products between Guangxi and Vietnam has achieved leapfrog development, and Vietnam has become the first major partner of Guangxi’s agricultural products trade. Since 2017, more than 64% of agricultural products in Guangxi’s agricultural export trade have been exported to Vietnam, and the variety of agricultural products imported and exported is getting richer. From the RCA index, the international competitive advantage of Vietnam’s agricultural products is higher than that of Guangxi, and the plant products of both sides have a strong competitive advantage in the world market. The export similarity between Guangxi and Vietnam in the world market is low, the advantageous agricultural products are different, the competition is weak, and a good complementary relationship can be formed. However, there are still some negative factors that restrict the harmonious development of bilateral agricultural products trade, such as unbalanced trade between the two sides, Vietnam’s long-term trade deficit position, the competitive advantages of both Guangxi and Vietnam’s agricultural products in international competition are weakening year by year, unreasonable structure of agricultural products export, low added value, political, Covid-19 epidemic and other non-economic factors. Guangxi and Vietnam can promote the long-term and stable development of agricultural products trade between the two sides by docking RCEP rules, starting the construction of CAFTA version 3.0, actively participating in the layout and reconstruction of industrial chain, supply chain and value chain of agricultural products in the region, improving the export structure of agricultural products, increasing the added value of agricultural products, improving the international competitiveness of agricultural products, vigorously introducing agriculture-related investment and technology, strengthening communication and coordination, properly handling the South China Sea issue and other measures.