Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of China–Ghana Agricultural Product Trade
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study is interesting from a trade relationship viewpoint. The measures used to capture the trade structure are compelling. However, the empirical findings of RCA and TCI analysis should be made clear for Ghana and China. Why China's agricultural export to Ghana is deteriorating, and in contrast, why has Ghana edged up in exports to China? Does this dominance pertain to raw materials production advantage, lesser opportunity costs incurred, or other reasons?
How to account for exchange risk (foreign exchange and interest rate differentials) for estimating the RCA and TCI?
What interpretations do authors have for Ghana and China's agricultural export-import structures, and can they measure the H-H index for Ghana-China agricultural trade concentration?
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear Editor Dr. Ubonrat Thamrongwaranggoon
Thank you very much for your letter forwarding the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled “Research On the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity Of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana”. We have revised the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments and highlighted the changes using red and blue text in the revised manuscript. Below I delineate the specific changes we have made and our point-to-point responses to the questions/suggestions raised by the reviewers.
We thank Reviewer 1 for his/her positive comments: “The study is interesting from a trade relationship viewpoint. The measures used to capture the trade structure are compelling. However, the empirical findings of RCA and TCI analysis should be made clear for Ghana and China”.
Point 1: Why China's agricultural export to Ghana is deteriorating, and in contrast, why has Ghana edged up in exports to China? Does this dominance pertain to raw materials production advantage, lesser opportunity costs incurred, or other reasons?
Response 1: We greatly appreciate R1 suggestion. China’s agriculture export to Ghana showed an increasing trend(Fig 1 in the revised manuscript), again Ghana has edged up in export to China, but showed an overall stable and a slight decrease in 2020. We revised(added) the following; This is because the value of the agriculture product was used, and since the value was used and not the net weight, on the other hand in recent years the Renminbi's appreciation against the dollar, and the Ghana Cedis might contribute to the high value of trade export to Ghana and of the trade surplus, and also in the same years the Ghana Cedis has depreciated against the dollar and the Renminbi might lead to the overall stability and a slight decrease in the value of the agricultural product to China 2020. Again Agriculture product value has turned to decrease in value year-by-year. (See section 2.1, para.1, and Fig. 1 in the revised manuscript.)
Again R1 was right for his/her suggestion regarding why Ghana has edged up in exports to China and this dominance actually pertains to Ghana’s factors of endowment thus raw materials production advantage, and China’s high domestic demand (See section 4.1, b para.2 in the revised manuscript.)
Point 2: How to account for exchange risk (foreign exchange and interest rate differentials) for estimating the RCA and TCI?
Response 2: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. To estimate the RCA and the TCI, we did not account for exchange rate risk, because, according to their definitions and formula. The only needed data for their estimation was the two countries' export and import values of their agriculture trade.
Point 3: What interpretations do authors have for Ghana and China's agricultural export-import structures, and can they measure the H-H index for Ghana-China agricultural trade concentration?
Response 3: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. In topic 2.3 “Commodity Structure of Agricultural Product Trade”, and Table 2 “Commodity Structure Of China-Ghana Agricultural Product Trade-unit: %”, we gave a detailed interpretation of Ghana and China's agricultural export-import structures.
Again we can not use the H-H index, this index measures the market concentration and is also used to determine market competitiveness but normally of firms which is a micro level index and also not a trade index. With the Market competitiveness, the RCA helps us to determine. And the indexes used in our research are macro-level index.
Point 4: Extensive editing of English language and style required
Response 4: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The language and style have been revised.
(See pages 1-17 in the revised manuscript)
Thank you very much for your consideration of this research article for the journal. Again, we greatly appreciate the reviewers for their comments on our work and their constructive suggestions. Addressing their questions/suggestions has greatly improved the quality of our manuscript. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments for Author:
The paper deals with an exciting topic within the scope of this journal. Compared with contrast, it approached the Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana.
I cannot find any acceptable introduction to why this study is necessary; there are too long sentences and no exciting citations. What is the research question of this study and in line with the hypothesis to be drawn in the framework of current knowledge? The author claimed that there is coexist comparative advantage and complementarity advantage of which country has comparative advantage and competitiveness? There is a missing literature review section and empirical scrutiny in this paper. What protocol was adopted to collect the data in the methodology and no particular sampling method and size? Overall the document is not well-written and organized. There are so many grammatical errors in subsections. The Results and Discussion can be appreciated and provide valuable input for the policymakers separately. In this article, the figures and tables caption is not satisfactory suppose in Table 1, who is who and what is what? Same in Table 3, no such clarity at all? The reference list did not cover the relevant literature adequately and unbiasedly. The authors used third-party secondary data, and the methods are not sufficiently documented for replication studies. What are their own contributions? The author should consider the research question and be in line with why this research is significant with contemporary knowledge to contribute.
Moreover, the Authors Must:
1) Rethink the title. It reflects all the contents; too many (and") are used. Is that what the author wants to explore?
2) The abstract should be redesigned, and I don't see any flow in the abstract like why, how, where and for what is necessary to study.
3) Enhance and improve the introduction section; why is there only one paragraph with dated citation the same as the second paragraph?
4) More up-to-date citations and references should be added in the introduction section
5) Include some study implications, limitations, and future prospects and way forward in the conclusions section.
6) Polish the English to avoid typos or incomplete sentences along the paper. Therefore, language needs to be edited for all the sub-sections.
7) All the Tables and figures needed APA style.
8) Missing the literature review and Discussion sections, compare your results with current Research
9) What is the difference between categories 1 and 01? Why is it coded like this?
10) There should be Material and Methods, not Research Methodology
11) In table 2, why are there missing data for Category 4 and Category 1?
12) In table 4, there should be livestock rather than live animals.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Editor Dr. Ubonrat Thamrongwaranggoon
Thank you very much for your letter forwarding the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled “Research On the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity Of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana”. We have revised the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments and highlighted the changes using red and blue text in the revised manuscript. Below I delineate the specific changes we have made and our point-to-point responses to the questions/suggestions raised by the reviewers.
We thank reviewer 2 for his/her positive comments: “The paper deals with an exciting topic within the scope of this journal. Compared with contrast, it approached the Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana”.
Point 1: I cannot find any acceptable introduction to why this study is necessary; there are too long sentences and no exciting citations.
Response 1: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. In the Introduction section, we ponder upon numerous reasons why we undertake this research and its necessity such as; The current and historical relationship between China and Ghana focusing on their agriculture relationship, the role agriculture has played in the development of developing countries, and both countries Ghana and China are also traditionally agriculture countries. And with the suggestion of the Reviewer, we have additionally revised with, there exists less study about them(China and Ghana) even no study about their comparative advantages and their complementarity of their agriculture product trade, and the realization of the study makes it vital to carry out this research on the comparative advantage and agricultural product complementarity between the two countries. (see section 1 last sentence in the revised manuscript)
Additionally, the long sentences and the citations have been revised in the revised manuscript (see pages 1-17 in the revised manuscript)
Point 2: What is the research question of this study and in line with the hypothesis to be drawn in the framework of current knowledge?
Response 2: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The research question is what is actually the current situation of agriculture trade Between China and Ghana on their comparative advantage and Complementarity? In line with the hypothesis was our sub-topics
What is the Status Quo Of China Ghana Bilateral Trade In Agriculture Products?: with this, we use the following;
- The Proportion of Agricultural Product Trade in the Bilateral Trade Between the Two Countries
- Their Commodity Structure of Agricultural Product Trade
- Position of China-Ghana Agricultural Product Trade in China - ECOWAS Trade
The above points(subtopics) help us to get the current knowledge on the Status Quo Of China-Ghana Bilateral Trade In Agriculture Products
What are their Agriculture Trade Comparative advantage and their complementarity? l
And the suitable index to help us find this knowledge was the RCA index and the TCI.
What are the factors influencing Agriculture trade competitiveness and complementarity
between China and Ghana?
The factors were pointed out through our results and analysis. Such as; the scarcity of arable land in China has put the comparative advantage of Category 2 and Category 4 at a disadvantage in recent years. The strong comparative advantage of China's agriculture products in category 0 demonstrates that China has more labor-intensive agriculture products than land and forest-intensive agriculture products. Etc.
l
What are the efficient measures that can be employed to fully strengthen and promote the
trade in agriculture products between the two countries?
This measure was captured in our recommendations based on our results.
Point 3: The author claimed that there is coexist comparative advantage and complementarity advantage of which country has comparative advantage and competitiveness?
Response 3: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We agree with the reviewer's suggestion, we have modified the statement.(see the Abstract section of the revised manuscript)
Point 4: There is a missing literature review section and empirical scrutiny in this paper.
Response 4: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments in the literature review section. ( see section 1.2 of the revised manuscript)
Point 5: What protocol was adopted to collect the data in the methodology and no particular sampling method and size?
Response 5: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s comment. Data was collected based on the definition of agricultural products by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Again this
study applied SITC Rev.4 commodity classification codes on the UN comtrade database to categorize agricultural products, of which we included code 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 1, 21, 22, 23, 24, 251, 26, 29, 4 and 42. This study selected 2016-2020 as the sample period, and the data was mainly from the United Nations Trade in Goods Database.
(see section 3.1 and Table 4 of the revised manuscript)
Point 6: Overall the document is not well-written and organized. There are so many grammatical errors in subsections.
Response 6: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The overall document has been revised and the grammatical errors in the subsections have also been revised. (see pages 1-17 in the revised manuscript)
Point 7: In this article, the figures and tables caption is not satisfactory suppose in Table 1, who is who and what is what? Same in Table 3, no such clarity at all?
Response 7: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The captions of Table 1 and Table 3 have been revised. (See Table 1 and Table 3 in the revised manuscript)
Point 8: The reference list did not cover the relevant literature adequately and unbiasedly.
Response 8: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The reference list has been revised to cover relevant literatures. (see the reference section of the revised manuscript)
Point 9: The authors used third-party secondary data, and the methods are not sufficiently documented for replication studies. What are their own contributions?
Response 9: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We politely disagree. To the best of our knowledge, all methodological details and relevant data with reference are made available for replication studies.
Point 10: The author should consider the research question and be in line with why this research is significant with contemporary knowledge to contribute.
Response 10: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have reassessed our research questions, and with the knowledge, we have contributed to the understanding(knowledge) of both countries' advantages, disadvantages, and competitiveness in their agricultural products trade, and figured out some economic factors such as labor, land, and Factors of endowment, etc., was some influencing factors. The analysis of the result and Findings from the study gives a deep understanding(knowledge) of both countries' agriculture trade.
Studies of this kind (Comparative Advantage and Competitiveness) between China and Ghana or even Africa are lacking, and we believe our study is a major contribution to the knowledge of agriculture trade between the two countries. And a set-up study for other African and developing countries with China
Point 11: Rethink the title. It reflects all the contents; too many (and") are used. Is that what the author wants to explore?
Response 11: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have revised the title of the study, to reduce the (and”) but maintained its originality.
Point 12: The abstract should be redesigned, and I don't see any flow in the abstract like why, how, where and for what is necessary to study.
Response 12: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have revised the abstract section, to make the flow very clear.
Point 13: Enhance and improve the introduction section; why is there only one paragraph with dated citations the same as the second paragraph?
Response 13: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The introduction section has been improved, and the citation has been also improved
Point 14: More up-to-date citations and references should be added in the introduction section
Response 14: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The introduction section has been revised with more up-to-date citations and references.
Point 15: Include some study implications, limitations, and future prospects and a way forward in the conclusions section.
Response 15: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The conclusion has been revised according to the suggestion.
Point 16: Polish the English to avoid typos or incomplete sentences along the paper. Therefore, language needs to be edited for all the sub-sections.
Response 16: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The language has been revised, and the typos and incomplete sentences have been corrected. (See pages 1-16) of the revised manuscript
Point 17: All the Tables and figures needed APA style.
Response 17: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. All tables and Figures have been revised to APA style. (see pages 1-18 of the revised manuscript)
Point 18: Missing the literature review and Discussion sections, compare your results with current Research
Response 18: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The reviewer was right, the paper has been revised with a literature review( see section 1.2 of the revised manuscript). With current research, there has been no research between the two countries and their comparative advantage and complementarity
Point 19: What is the difference between categories 1 and 01? Why is it coded like this?
Response 19: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. This code is a unique fixed identity code assigned by the United Nations Comtrade database on each product. The code 1 is beverages and tobacco which then belongs to category 1 of the agriculture products, whiles code 01 is meat and meat preparations which then fall under the category 0.
Point 20) There should be Material and Methods, not Research Methodology
Response 20: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The section has been corrected. (see sections 3 and 3.1 of the revised manuscript)
Point 21) In table 2, why are there missing data for Category 4 and Category 1?
Response 21: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. For missing data in tables, in such cases “0” means that in calculation the value % was insignificant, and “-” means that there was no data value in that year.
Point 22) In table 4, there should be livestock rather than live animals.
Response 22: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The names are given according to the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) Rev. 4 on the UN Comtrade database
Thank you very much for your consideration of this research article for the journal. Again, we greatly appreciate the reviewers for their comments on our work and their constructive suggestions. Addressing their questions/suggestions has greatly improved the quality of our manuscript. We look forward to hear from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments for Author:
The authors have tried to defend their argument well in this paper; however, the abstract is the same as before, and just a few words have been rephrased; what etiquette did the authors espouse to accumulate the data and no precise sampling method and size well?
In the introduction first paragraph, OECD research was conducted in 2016 using 16 developing countries as sample data but cited in (2010)?
I cannot find any theoretical framework of current knowledge that can withstand empirical scrutiny in this paper; why?
The author claimed that there is coexist comparative advantage and complementarity advantage of which country has comparative advantage and competitiveness?
The Discussion section is totally missing at all author claimed that their study is the only one that can’t compare its results with existing research; here are some sample studies. I think your study copy from one of the studies below provides valuable input separately?
Hoang, V. (2018). Assessing the agricultural trade complementarity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries. Agricultural economics, 64(10), 464-475.
Chandran, D., & Sudarsan, P. K. (2012). Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and trade complementarity between India-ASEAN trade: A study with reference to fisheries sector. Available at SSRN 2054132.
Liu, C., Xu, J., & Zhang, H. (2020). Competitiveness or complementarity? A dynamic network analysis of international agri-trade along the Belt and Road. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 13(2), 349-374.
Table 3, shows no such clarity at all, whereas this paper discusses the Agricultural Product Trade Position between China-Ghana or China between West Africa?
The reference list only 24 did not cover the relevant literature adequately reference seems to be unbiasedly portrayed in this paper.
What are the authors' contributions, as this paper used third-party secondary data, and the methods are not sufficiently documented for replication studies?
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Editor Dr. Ubonrat Thamrongwaranggoon
Thank you very much for your letter forwarding the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled “Research On the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity Of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana”, for the second round. We have revised the manuscript according to the reviewer 2 comments and highlighted the changes using blue and violet text and a mark-up red in the revised manuscript. Below I delineate the specific changes we have made and our point-to-point responses to the questions/suggestions raised by the reviewers.
We thank reviewer 2 for his/her positive comments: “The authors have tried to defend their argument well in this paper”
Point 1: however, the abstract is the same as before, and just a few words have been rephrased
Response 1: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We have revised the abstract section. With abstract, generally having its different characteristics and according to the reviewer’s comments, we can present the flow of our abstract as
Why: As trade partners, China in Southeast Asia and Ghana in Africa both play a major role in the China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation and have strengthened their bilateral trade. The trade cooperation between China and Ghana has progressed, and there currently exists a large agricultural product trade between the two countries. China has become one of Ghana’s largest trading partners in recent decades, and bilateral cooperation has become stronger.
How: This paper analyses the comparative advantage and complementarity of trade in agricultural products between China and Ghana in terms of twenty major agricultural products from 2016 to 2020, based on the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index, Trade Complementarity index, and their Status Quo
Where: The results showed that the trade volume of China-Ghana agricultural products has continuously increased, and China is currently in a surplus state, but their total agriculture trade volume proportions had been decreasing. From the perspective of comparative advantage and complementarity, the results showed that comparative advantage and complementarity coexist, but their comparative advantage is more obvious showing strong competitiveness. The result further shows that The comparative advantage of Ghana was stronger than that of China and the complementarity of China's exports and Ghana’s imports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited; likewise, the complementarity of China’s imports and Ghana’s exports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited since 2018, and there is a large potential for further cooperation and development.
What: Finally, based on the current situation and our analysis of agricultural trade between China and Ghana, suggestions were put forward to seek new and continuous development opportunities for agricultural trade cooperation between the two countries.
(See the abstract section of the revised manuscript)
Point 2: what etiquette did the authors espouse to accumulate the data and no precise sampling method and size well?
Response 2: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We selected the top 20 agriculture product categories exported between China and Ghana and to the world as a sample data size. And the agricultural product was selected according to the WTO definition of Agriculture product. We think the 20 selected agricultural product gives a clear picture of their whole agriculture trade. All import and export data of their agriculture trade for our calculation was from the UN Comtrade database. The section has been revised based on the reviewer’s suggestion (see section 3.1 of the revised manuscript)
Point 3: In the introduction first paragraph, OECD research was conducted in 2016 using 16 developing countries as sample data but cited in (2010)?
Response 3: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The said error point on the citation has been corrected.
Point 4: I cannot find any theoretical framework of current knowledge that can withstand empirical scrutiny in this paper; why?
Response 4: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The theoretical framework of the study is the analytic indexes (RCA and TCI) that were used in our research problem we are investigating (What is the comparative advantage and Complementarity of China-Ghana Agriculture trade like). And the theories of these indexes( RCA and TCI) were defined to make the knowledge of this paper withstand. (see sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 of the revised manuscript)
Point 5: The author claimed that there is coexist comparative advantage and complementarity advantage of which country has comparative advantage and competitiveness?
Response 5: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. From the perspective of comparative advantage and complementarity, the results showed that the comparative advantage and complementarity coexist, but their comparative advantage is more obvious showing strong competitiveness. The result further shows that the comparative advantage of Ghana was stronger than that of China… (see the abstract section of the revised manuscripts)
Point 6: The Discussion section is totally missing at all author claimed that their study is the only one that can’t compare its results with existing research; here are some sample studies. I think your study copy from one of the studies below provides valuable input separately?
Response 6: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. We politely disagree with the reviewer's suggestion. The discussion section has not been missing, the discussion section was discussed together with the result section. In sections 4.1 a. and b. of the Result and Discussion of RCA, we first summarize our key findings, share our interpretation, provided a picture of what can be concluded from the study, and stated some practical recommendations. With careful review, what was missing was to discuss the implications, by relating our result back to previously discussed literature and existing knowledge
Also based on the reviewer’s suggestion we have revised the result and discussion section and also modified the title for clarity. (see section 4 of the revised manuscripts)
Point 7: Table 3, shows no such clarity at all, whereas this paper discusses the Agricultural Product Trade Position between China-Ghana or China between West Africa?
Response 7: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. Table 3 shows the proportion of China and Ghana, their Total agriculture bilateral trade in the China and West Africa Total Agriculture trade. In relation to their proportions, we figured out their position. Based on the reviewer's comment the table has been revised for more clarity (see table 3 in the revised manuscript)
Point 8: The reference list only 24 did not cover the relevant literature adequately reference seems to be unbiasedly portrayed in this paper.
Response 8: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The reference list has been revised to cover the relevant literature adequately. (see the reference section in the revised manuscript
Point 9: What are the authors' contributions, as this paper used third-party secondary data, and the methods are not sufficiently documented for replication studies?
Response 9: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The data was from a reliable source, the UN Comtrade database. But all the calculations, finding their status quo, the RCA, and TCI were computed by the authors to give us first-hand clear knowledge information about the two countries' agriculture trade. Amid this, we are the first to contribute to the design of finding the status quo for this related research on the comparative advantage and competitiveness between China and Ghana. Again in section 3, we documented the Methods of this study. The methods used to conduct our study are documented for replication studies. (see section 3 of the revised manuscript)
Thank you very much for your consideration of this research article for the journal. Again, we greatly appreciate the reviewers for their comments on our work and their constructive suggestions. Addressing their questions/suggestions has greatly improved the quality of our manuscript. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor,
I am very enchanted to review the Manuscript for sustainability-1847630 entitled: Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of Agricultural Products Between China and Ghana.
The authors have addressed all the comments thoroughly and defended their argument well in this piece of work; however, it can be accepted after minor revisions.
Best Regards,
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Editor Dr. Ubonrat Thamrongwaranggoon
Thank you very much again for your letter forwarding the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled “Research On the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity Of Agricultural Product Between China and Ghana”, for the third round. We have revised the manuscript according to the reviewer 2 comments and highlighted the changes using blue text and a mark-up of red in the revised manuscript. Below I delineate the specific changes we have made and our point-to-point responses to the questions/suggestions raised by the reviewers.
We thank reviewer 2 for his/her positive comments: The authors have addressed all the comments thoroughly and defended their argument well in this piece of work.
Point 1: Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic? (Can be Improved)
Response 1: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The said minor revision point have been revised and improved, by adding additional references to our reference list, and the literature review has also been revised to support our research, to sufficiently present previous and present theoretical and theoretical background. (see the reference section and section 1.2 of the revised manuscript)
Point 2: English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
Response 2: Thanks very much for the reviewer’s suggestion. The minor spell check has been revised (See pages 1-17 in the revised manuscript)
Thank you very much again for your consideration of this research article for the journal. Again, we greatly appreciate the reviewers for their comments on our work and their constructive suggestions. Addressing their questions/suggestions has greatly improved the quality of our manuscript. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
