Present Situation, Problems and Development Countermeasures of Zhejiang Tea Export (Tang Yi, Tea Department of Zhejiang University, Liu Zusheng, Hangzhou 3 10029) Abstract Zhejiang tea export has developed rapidly and has obvious advantages, which occupies an important position in the national tea export and the tea industry economy of the whole province. This paper analyzes the characteristics and development trend of Zhejiang tea export from the aspects of product structure, export, market distribution and management mechanism, and puts forward some exploratory ideas on how to deal with outstanding problems such as green barriers and improve export trade conditions. Keywords Zhejiang; Tea export; Green barrier; Terms of trade; In terms of product structure, the picture classification number S557 1. 1 document identification number: C document number: 0577-8921(2003) 03-155-04 I. Main characteristics of Zhejiang tea export at present104. Zhejiang now accounts for about 5% with Morocco, Russia, Senegal, Japan and the European Union. Three countries and regions have established tea trade relations, mainly exporting pearl tea, eyebrow tea and steamed green tea. In 2002, the province exported 12. 1 10000 tons of tea, accounting for 48.0 4% of the country's total tea exports. The total foreign exchange earned by export is142.757 million USD, accounting for 43 13 of the total tea export value in China. Among them, the export of green tea earned foreign exchange of 6.5438+0.29528 million US dollars, accounting for 6.465438+02% of the total export value of green tea in China. In recent years, the proportion of Zhejiang tea export value to China tea export value is shown in table 1. It can be seen from the table 1 that Zhejiang's tea exports are growing rapidly. During the seven years from 1996 to 2002, the export volume and foreign exchange earned by exports have more than doubled, and the share of foreign exchange earned by tea exports in the whole country has steadily increased, from 1996. Therefore, in recent years, Zhejiang's leading edge in the national tea export has been further expanded. 1.2 As a traditional bulk export commodity in Zhejiang, tea has obvious comparative advantages. Because the structure of rural production factors in Zhejiang Province is characterized by rich human resources and relatively scarce land resources. Therefore, relatively labor-intensive farming or aquaculture should be given priority, while crops that consume a lot of land resources should be restricted. Tea gardens are mostly built on hillsides, occupying less cultivated land; Tea picking and processing need a lot of human resources. This shows that vigorously developing tea production is in line with the comparative interests of Zhejiang Province. At present, the output value of tea accounts for 1.72 of the agricultural output value of the whole province, which has made positive contributions to the rural economic development of the whole province. Tea plays a very important role in the export of agricultural and sideline products in Zhejiang Province. According to the statistics of Hangzhou Customs, tea export 1998 earned US$ 87.43 million, accounting for the third place in the export proportion of agricultural and sideline products in the province, second only to aquatic products and vegetables. At present, these three products are still in the top three. 1.3 Market-oriented export operation mechanism has been gradually formed, and export operation modes are flexible and diverse. From 65438 to 0979, with the approval of the relevant departments of the central government, Zhejiang became a separate port, and the autonomy of tea export continued to expand. After 1993, the reform of foreign trade system and export decentralization greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of tea export enterprises. There are more and more private enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and joint-stock enterprises engaged in tea export in our province, and the market entities are diversified. At present, there are about two enterprises that have the right to operate tea export in Zhejiang Province, namely Zhejiang Tea Import and Export Corporation, Zhejiang Branch of China Native Animal Import and Export Corporation, Zhejiang Grain and Oil Import and Export Corporation, Zhejiang Zhong Da Group Corporation and Zhejiang Fahua Export Tea Factory. In addition, the management modes of Zhejiang tea export are increasingly diversified, such as self-export by tea factories, agency system and compensation trade. In recent years, Zhejiang tea has continuously opened up new international markets, such as the low-grade green tea market in Uzbekistan and the steamed green tea market in Japan, which has made the export volume of Zhejiang tea keep rising and hit record highs. 1.4 The proportion of green tea exports is getting higher and higher, and the structure of exported tea products has been improved. Green tea is the tea product with the highest output and the largest export volume in China. Compared with other tea-producing provinces in China, Zhejiang's green tea not only has high yield, but also has obvious advantages of complete varieties. At present, about half of the green tea in the international market comes from the export of Zhejiang. It can be seen from the table art that the structural characteristics of tea exported from Zhejiang Province have been very obvious since 1996. At present, the export ratio of green tea is about 90%, followed by scented tea, accounting for about 6%, while the I=I of black tea and other teas is very small. Due to the high proportion of green tea exports, there is no room for structural adjustment between different teas. In this case, Zhejiang Province actively develops new varieties of green tea and cultivates new export growth points. 8。 Steamed green tea first rose in Zhejiang Province in the late 1990s, and developed rapidly in recent years, which to some extent eased the market pressure brought by the oversupply of traditional green tea products such as Zhu tea and Mei tea in the northwest African market. In addition, export enterprises constantly adjust and optimize the export ratio of different varieties of green tea, further improving the overall export efficiency. L. 5 export trade channels have been broadened, but the main sales markets are still concentrated in northwest Africa. Zhejiang's tea export market is relatively concentrated. Take green tea as an example, northwest Africa accounts for more than 50%, followed by Asia and Europe. In 2000, exports to the EU still accounted for about 900%. Due to the influence of green barriers, this proportion has been greatly reduced in 2002. From the perspective of importing countries, the largest market of Zhejiang green tea is Morocco, accounting for 3 1.47 of the total export, followed by Japan, accounting for 13.89+ 1.6. It has gradually developed from an export tea production base into a processing and distribution base and an export distribution center. In recent years, with the adjustment and optimization of tea industry structure, the position of famous tea in Zhejiang tea industry economy has become more and more prominent. A large number of famous tea leaves have been harvested, which has affected the export of raw tea materials and is difficult to meet the growing export demand. In this case, Zhejiang province actively adjusts its business ideas and broadens the acquisition channels of raw tea. According to the survey, there are more and more high-grade crude teas imported from Fujian, Jiangxi, Guizhou and other places. In these areas, the tenderness and quality of crude tea are better than that of local tea because of the small amount of famous tea processing in the early stage. The adjustment of raw tea supply and marketing channels has promoted the professional division of labor and complementary advantages between Zhejiang and other tea-producing areas in China, and Zhejiang's position as the processing, blending and trading center of China's exported green tea is gradually being established. Second, the challenges faced. 1 The influence of green barriers on Zhejiang tea export. Since the EU implemented the new MRL standard on July 1 2000, "green barriers have become the biggest obstacle to China's tea export, and China's tea export to the EU has been declining year by year. Because Zhejiang mainly sells green tea, the proportion of its exports to the EU is relatively small, which is better than that of Guangdong and Guangxi, which mainly sell black tea. However, the negative impact of green barriers can not be ignored. From June 2002 to June 2003, Zhejiang's exports to the EU were only 2,200 tons and 4 million US dollars respectively, down 40% year-on-year. Compared with the same period of F, it is more noteworthy that some other developed countries follow the example of the European Union to improve the control standards of pesticide residues in tea, and Japan restricts the import of imported green tea by implementing new pesticide residue inspection measures. Affected by this, it is very difficult to export steamed green tea [']. In 2002, Zhejiang only exported 7,886.2 tons of green tea (mainly steamed green tea) to Japan, a decrease of 24.83% over the previous year. At present, the most interesting thing is the vicious competition and low-price competition brought about by the imperfect operating mechanism in Japan. Before the 1990s, the export of 1 1 tea was monopolized or jointly operated by the state, and all ports were open to the outside world, so the international price of green tea was basically controlled by China, and the profit rate was high. After the reform of foreign trade system, China's tea export changed from monopoly operation to open operation. Although this is conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of all aspects of tea export to Japan, the supporting management mechanism of export is relatively backward, and low-price competition occurs from time to time, which leads to the disorder of export operation. At the same time, because the overall supply of international tea market exceeds demand, importers can bargain through more orders and profit from it. The deterioration of the terms of trade is also manifested in the decline of the market position of export tea. In the past, brands such as "Tiantan Brand" of China green tea were household names in western non-markets. At present, except for a few brands such as "Camel Brand", tea export enterprises in the province generally lack independent brands. Even if they export in small packages, most of them use the packaging of brands nominated by importers, and the added value of brands in export prices is almost lost. 2.3 The price of tea has been declining year after year, and the benefits have been obviously reduced. In the past three years, the average export price of tea in our province has been declining continuously (Figure 1), and the export benefit has obviously decreased. Some tea export enterprises in our province have been operating in a break-even state. Needless to say, in addition to the problems existing in the operating mechanism, the decline in quality is an important factor causing the decline in tea prices. Due to the lack of unified physical standard samples for the sensory quality of exported tea, written standards are often a mere formality, which makes each export enterprise have greater "autonomy" in product brand and grade setting, and it is difficult for quality inspection departments to strictly control the quality of exported tea according to unified standards, and it is also difficult to fundamentally eliminate parallel imports. Moreover, falling prices often force export enterprises to reduce costs by reducing production inputs, thus causing a vicious circle of low quality and low price. This situation is in great contrast with the requirements of the economic quality and benefit development of the current tea industry. Third, some ideas 3. 1 Notice on Further Adjusting and Optimizing the Structure of Tea Products for Export. Tea, like other agricultural sectors, is a weak industry, which is determined by the characteristics of products. Agricultural products are generally perishable, which makes their production and operation activities have strong timeliness. It is difficult for producers to protect their interests by "waiting for the price to sell". Once the market supply exceeds demand, it will easily lead to panic sales at a loss, and the market risk is greater. Compared with domestic tea, the weakness of tea is more obvious. Due to the complex production process and long production cycle of most exported tea, it is difficult for export enterprises to adjust the output and color grade composition at any time according to the changes in market demand. In addition, because the domestic demand for tea tends to be high-grade, traditional commodity products have long lost the domestic market, and export tea factories produce them exclusively for export. Once the inventory backlog is formed, it is difficult to digest the "export to domestic sales". There are many kinds of tea exported from China. Although this is conducive to increasing the overall scale of exports, it may not be conducive to improving the terms of trade. Take the green tea exported from Zhejiang as an example. Pearl tea, steamed green tea and other varieties with different colors have been finalized in the early stage of production and cannot be reformed. Their export market has great limitations. Japan doesn't sell pearl tea, and steamed green tea can't enter the northwest African market. Therefore, as far as a particular export product is concerned, its main sales market is relatively narrow and its market adaptability is not strong. Once the market demand is insufficient, vicious competition and price reduction will be hard to avoid. It can be seen that further adjusting and optimizing the structure of exported tea products is an important way to improve the terms of trade of exported tea. The feasible measures are as follows: first, expand the export of famous tea and promote the integration of tea export and domestic market; The second is to improve the processing depth of traditional tea products, develop more products such as tea polyphenols and instant tea, which can widely adapt to the consumption preferences around the world, and improve the flexibility of product structure through the diversified combination of traditional tea and new generation tea products, so that tea exports have more room to be flexibly adjusted according to the international market demand. Of course, to improve the terms of trade, we can also establish a risk guarantee system for exporting tea from the perspective of institutional innovation and referring to the common practices in foreign agricultural support systems. Once the market price drops sharply due to uncontrollable factors, trade associations or other relevant organizations will compensate the tea export enterprises that have suffered losses due to the backlog of stocks, so as to prevent panic and stabilize the market order. 3.2 On the issue of improving the industrial organization structure of the tea export sector, China's tea business is scattered, the production scale of enterprises is small, and the production mode is backward, and Zhejiang Province is no exception. At present, one end of tea export enterprises is connected with the international market, and the other end is a large number of family producers who provide processing raw materials. The contradiction between small production and large market is very prominent, which has brought a series of problems. First, according to the current small-scale peasant management mode at the source of tea production chain, it is difficult to effectively monitor the content of "pesticide residues" in fresh tea. Once the goods are returned due to unqualified sanitary quality, it is difficult to investigate the "pollution responsibility", and the export company bears all the economic losses caused by it, which invisibly increases the export cost; Secondly, in order to reduce costs, export companies have to lower the price of tea processing plants, and then lower the price of tea farmers. As the main body of small-scale production, tea farmers have neither the right to price protection nor the responsibility to export tea farmers whose pesticide residues exceed the standard. This seriously distorted market relationship of responsibility, power and benefit will inevitably reduce the efficiency of production and operation. Thus, it is of far-reaching significance to improve the organizational level of tea grass-roots producers and further promote the process of tea industrialization. The trial of tea industrialization in Zhejiang province has achieved initial results by crossing the "green barrier". Zhejiang Tea Import and Export Corporation, the largest tea exporter in Zhejiang Province, has realized the whole process quality control from fresh leaves to finished tea through the operation mode of "ten bases of the company+farmers". In the first half of 2002, the company exported green tea 1 166 tons to the EU, when the province's exports to the EU dropped sharply. Only 3.2% lower than the same period last year. 3.3 With regard to further improving the export tea trade system, the deterioration of the terms of trade of export tea has a certain relationship with the unreasonable trade mode and trade system. At present, Kenya, Sri Lanka and other countries that export black broken tea by auction, while the export volume is growing steadily, the export price is generally firm, which is significantly higher than that of China. There are many factors, but the mode of transaction may be an important reason. Compared with the simple contract ordering method adopted by China tea export for a long time, the auction transaction has its inherent advantages. First, as a platform for fair trade, the auction market has no entry threshold, and foreign small and medium-sized merchants can participate in the transaction. For export enterprises, it can better avoid the phenomenon that trade channels are monopolized by some large foreign companies and prices are at the mercy of others; Secondly, the information in the auction market is open and has the function of price guidance, which can better prevent the "bargain-hunting" behavior caused by information asymmetry; Third, the operating tool of the auction market, the starting price, can provide the lowest price protection for export products. The above points almost touch the crux of China's current tea export management mechanism. It can be seen that the establishment of a "dual-track" export trade system combining contract ordering and auction is a very worthwhile way to improve the trade conditions of China's tea exports. As the leading exporter of tea in China, Zhejiang Province is necessary and qualified to carry out the pilot work of tea auction market. Only by boldly trying and summing up experience in practice can we constantly improve the tea export trade system and make a demonstration in the whole country. Reference 1 Wei Longbao. Influence of China's entry into WTO on Zhejiang's agricultural development and its countermeasures. Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of Zhejiang Tea Society, 200 1: 54 572 Chen Zongchou, etc. Influence of China's entry into WTO on China's tea industry and its countermeasures, Tea Science, 2002,22 (1): 65438.