Brazil’s Agricultural Situation and Export Competitiveness of Soybean in the World and Korean Market
In Brazil, agricultural sector accounts for 15 percent of total employment and agricultural export takes 36 percent of the national merchandise exports. Particularly agricultural export has played an important role in Brazilian economic growth and stabilization. Brazil is a substantial agricultural exporter which obtains huge trade surplus in agricultural trade amounting USD 73,300 million. Major agricultural exports are grain and grain-processed products such as soybean, soybean cake, corn and soybean oil. Particularly soybean is the top exporting commodity in Brazil. Our Study overviews the situation of Brazilian agriculture and analyzes the export competitiveness of Brazilian soybean in the World and Korean markets. We employ several indexes such as price competitiveness, Market Share (MS), Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), and Comparative Advantage by countries (CAC) to analyze international competitiveness of Brazilian soybean. The main results of our study are as follows : First, U.S. Argentina, Paraguay and Canada are rivals with Brazil in the global soybean market. Second, Brazilian soybean has the 3rd highest price competitiveness following Paraguay and Argentina. Third, Brazilian soybean is second highest following Paraguay in a sense of export competitiveness through RCA and CAC index. Brazilian soybean has competitiveness in respect of comparative advantage not only in Korean market but also in global market. Especially CAC index of Brazilian soybean in the Korean market is higher than those of USA and China which have larger Korean market share than Brazil. However, the competition seems to be even more intensifying because Korea has already agreed on FTA with USA and China, and also Paraguay expands soybean export to Korea recently.