Identifying Opportunities for Latvia’s Export to China

Abstract

Latvia's economic growth relies heavily on exports. In recent years, Latvia's exports have also encountered severe challenges due to the Russian-Ukrainian war. Therefore, seeking a broader export market is crucial to Latvia's economic development. Based on the methodology of exploring and promoting Latvia’s export to China, the author has explored seven product categories (Cereals, Photographic or cinematographic goods, Tin, Railway, tramway locomotives, rolling stock, equipment, Explosives, pyrotechnics, matches, pyrophorics, Silk, and Arms and ammunition, parts and accessories) can be produced in Latvia with high demand potential and high trade barriers in China’s market by Trading Economics from 2008 to 2023. By the import trend of these seven product categories in China’s import market, the aim of this paper is to analyze the markets of the seven product categories from political and commercial risk, country’s size and growth, short and long term import growth, import market size, degree of concentration, and trade restrictions according to Decision Support Model and Papadopoulos et al.’s trade-off model to identify the opportunities of Latvia's export to China. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestions on how to reduce trade barriers for Latvian exporters of the above product categories to seek export opportunities to China’s market.