The Evolving Status of Agricultural Products in the Global Value Chain since China and Kyrgyzstan Established Diplomatic Relations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The paper entitled as "The Evolving Status of Agricultural Products in the Global Value Chain since China and Kyrgyzstan Established Diplomatic Relations" is an interesting paper on international trade and its economic implications following the establishment of Kyrgyz-Chinese diplomatic relations in 1992 and afterwards.

Such aggreements are expected to lead to decline in trade barriers and therefore economic prosperity through trade in addition to its relation to the Belt and Road initiative.  As noted, paper is interesting. However, certain problems raise concerns and it should be attended by the authors.

My decision is major revision. 

Comments are below:

1. The journal system asks and after checking for similarity, the paper yielded 24% similarity. If put in deccending order, 3% comes from an article published in Sustainability journal. However, I see that this paper is referenced in this paper by the authors. However, paraphrasing and commenting as third person with references would be good for this paper. Overall, 24% is high for a research paper, almost one-fourth,  there is space for parapharasing and referencing I assume.

2. The paper focuses directly on method by omitting a body of research.  Literature review section should be added after Introduction section (Heading 2. Literature Review) with articles with empirical findings on trade aggreements in the world and for China and Kyrgyzistan.   

3. Why did the authors not engage in empirical analysis with econometric models? Why is the study limited to index based evaluation? This data could be used for panel regressions to investigate a) the impact on economic development, b) the sustainability side of trade and development, both of which should be added to the article. Therefore, I suggest updating the paper with econometric methods and findings. 

4. Discussion section should be updated as Discussion and Policy Recommendations. Paper should derive directions and policy suggestions. The paper should discuss implications in terms of sustainability. The paper should engage in recent relevant literature with comparisons.  

5. Conclusion section should be updated after revisions in the empirical section. Future directions should be suggested. 

6. As I suggested literature review and missing the empirical research before, some papers that authors could use with this respect are below. The reason of not engaging in much empirical literature on Kyrgyzystan economy might be due to keyword search. Instead of country names, authors could use "transition economies" or "eurasian economies" which might bring studies including Kyrgyzystan.

Ersin and Bildirici, "The Effects of Inflation, Openness to Trade and Value Added in Production on Economic Growth in Transition Economies"

Bildirici and Ersin, "Economic Growth in the Eurasian Transition Economies: The Roles of Institutional and Structural Factors"

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

Dear authors,

below are may new comments.

 The aim of the work was clearly defined. I suggest you delete the repetition in lines 176-178.

On the scientific the “theory of global value chains” concept mentioned in the text still requires bibliographical references. Many references have been added, but I invite you to review all the numbering from line 142 onwards because 34 is repeated twice.

Please

- delete the typo (171 million1.71) corresponding to line 44;

- pay attention to the changes made to the manuscript. In the new version, the sentence in the lines 180-181 does not make sense if separated from the sentence in the lines 171-172.

I fully agree on how the 'Result' section has been rewritten. However, this part confirms itself as the weakest in the manuscript because it suffers from numerous errors and descriptions do not always correspond to tabular data (e.g. 269,000 instead of 2690,000 in table 3; 1995 instead of 1986 in the line 218; as averages of the last 25 years instead of 30 years in the lines 221-222, if the data time series starts from 1995; 2020 instead of 2000 in the line 237; before 2020 instead of 2015 in the line 272; 0.11 instead of 0.01 in the line 288, etc.). Furthermore, the whole period in lines 253-259, referring to Kyrgyzstan, is incorrect because it comments data referring to China in table 5. The sentence in the lines 289-292 is unfinished. The one in lines 335-336 is not based on evidence

In addition, it is unclear to me why table 3 starts with the year 1992 instead of 1995.

Consequently, the paper lacks a robust analysis.

I would also suggest coming back to the graphical model proposed in the previous version (please see Figures 1, 2, and 3).

 The discussion section could be significantly improved if the reflections on the countries’ competitiveness were accompanied by considerations on the reasons why differences exist. They, for instance, may be depend on the different importance of agriculture within the macro economic scenarios.

The conclusion section lacks implications..

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Dear Authors, I had concerns especially focusing on the nonexistence of empirical section which also includes econometric methods instead of index approach to evaluate comparative advantage. 

I note that in the rebuttal file, authors noted that such analysis could be conducted in the future after existence of more available data and this type of models would be (Multiple Linear Regression) utilized in future research. 

Due to the availability of short time series data, this response is sound. 

In addition, the corrections are followed carefully by the authors for other comments.

However, I want the authors to highlight the unavailability of enough dataset for econometric methods in the discussion and future directions should be suggested. 

 My decision is, majority is corrected for my concerns and rebuttal is sound. I accept the paper at this stage. However, the note above should be added while editing by the authors.  

Author Response

We are very grateful for your revision suggestions, which not only greatly improved the quality and level of this paper, but also greatly improved the journal article writing skills of authors. We are looking forward to the exchange opportunity with reviewers in the future. Thank you again for your hard work and precious suggestions. 

Response to your Comment as follow: 

Point: However, I want the authors to highlight the unavailability of enough dataset for econometric methods in the discussion and future directions should be suggested.

Response: In the last paragraph, the author describes the shortcomings of this study(Lines 490-497), especially the deficiencies in the use of econometric methods(Lines 493-494). In future studies, we will pay more attention to the application of econometric methods(Lines 496-497) .

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

Dear authors,

thank you for accepting my remarks so accurately.

I am glad to have contributed in improving your manuscript.

Author Response

We are very grateful for your revision suggestions, which not only greatly improved the quality and level of this paper, but also greatly improved the journal article writing skills of authors. We are looking forward to the exchange opportunity with reviewers in the future. Thank you again for your hard work and precious suggestions. 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,
Congratulations! This is a good paper. 
I asked for a Minor revision because:
1. In Figure 3 some of the text overlaps. Please check it.
2. Some spaces and a capital letter are missing from the source of Table 3.
3. I would suggest to refer to the time frame when discussing the evolution, in terms such as `between 1995 and 2021`, instead of `over the last 30 years` or `since independence`. This has a better chance of standing the test of time. 
4. Minor interventions are needed in the References section, in order to comply with the requirements (i.e. sometimes you used commas, other times you used colon).
Best,

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper has serious methodological issues.

First is, for a paper that aim at focusing on China - Kyrgyzystan trade, the literature and methodology of the paper is mainly based on Chinese research.  Kyrgyz literature in addition to international literature on transition economies is missing or not satisfactory. 

Second, the empirical approach: empirics is based on NET index. No econometric analysis is provided. It should be added. If concern is to base the analysis only on indices, why the NET index only? Why not in conjunction with a well-known index that is the Balassa index? By this way, the paper also lacks a robustness analysis.

I also suggest a trade theory perspective combined with econometric analysis for this paper. 

It is my decision to reject this paper and I am sorry for this decision.

Reviewer 3 Report

The Prospects of Agricultural Trade and Cooperation between China and Kyrgyzstan From the Perspective of the Evolving Status of Agricultural Products in the Global Value Chain

Dear Authors

The basic science of this paper is conducted in a good way and is of appropriate standard.  The author and his team write this paper according to journal scope and modern trends. I am glad to review this paper because paper is very interested according to my research interest area. I found very long sentences and some grammar mistakes. The author should revise whole manuscript and fix some grammar mistakes and split long sentences. Moreover, paper is not well-structured. I am going to recommend major revision at this stage because the conclusion section is missing from the main manuscript. The authors should add in the main manuscript and follow the rule of the international journal. I hope, the author will follow our comments and enhance own study and resubmit again in this journal.

Best Regards

Title

I am not satisfy about title of this study. The title of the study area is very long and complex and there is no fluency in the title. The authors should revise the title of the main manuscript.

Abstract

The start of the abstract is not appropriate. The authors should revise the whole abstract as per my suggested headings but don’t add these headings in the main abstract section.

    Background, 2. Objectives, 3. Material and methods, 4. Results and discussion and at the end of the abstract the author should write the purpose of the research.

Introduction

I agreed about the introduction section but there are some long sentences. The authors should split the long sentences according to context of the sentences.

Remove the heading of the Literature Review from the main manuscript.

I found there are some reference formatting problem in the main manuscript. Have a look.

Conclusion section is missing. The author should summarize the whole research and follow the rule of the international journal.

Best of luck with your manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

As stated by the authors “The goal of this paper was to focus on the evolving status of agricultural products in the global value chain since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Central Asia 30 years ago” (lines 194-197). Specifically, the paper “took Kyrgyzstan as an example to analyze the evolving status of agricultural products in China and the Central Asian countries in the global value chain during the past 30 years. On the basis of the findings, the study seeks to find new space for agricultural cooperation between China and Central Asia” (lines 60-63).

First of all, I would suggest that the authors clearly define the aim of the work in the 'Introduction' session, avoiding unnecessary repetitions in the other paragraphs.

Secondly, I would also suggest: checking paragraph titles (e.g. compare paragraph 4 “Result and Discussion” with paragraph 5 “Discussion and Implications”), changing paragraph titles to ensure a better consistency between titles and corresponding texts (e.g. 3.2. Construction of Indicator System), changing figure and table captions in accordance with the methodology applied ((e.g. Table 2 does not concern measures of the status of agricultural products in China and Kyrgyzstan; Figures 3, 4, and 5 refer to 2019).

The manuscript, on the whole, appears to be a technical report where descriptions do not always correspond to tabular data. This often happens when data are compared through the expression "respectively" (e.g. in lines 246-248; line 285; line 287; line 468).

On the scientific side many concepts or data sources mentioned in the text require bibliographical references. I am referring to: Belt and Road (line 30), global value chain  (line 50); theory of global value chains (line 78) ; Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (line 165); smile curve (line 518).

There are too many references from Chinese authors, including the authors of the paper.

As far as methodology is concerned, what is lacking is an in-depth discussion on the choice of the NET trade index, including ipros and cons bibliographical references (e.g. author of the formula in lines 136-137). The authors, for instance, might take inspiration from “Iapadre, P.L. Measuring international specialization. International Advances in Economic Research 7, 173–183 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02296007” available for free at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/P-Iapadre/publication/225484017_Measuring_International_Specialisation/links/0912f5037f96836569000000/Measuring-International-Specialisation.pdf

In addition, it is unclear to me how the classification reported in the table 2 (along with codes and the note) squares with the figures in the tables 4, 5, 6, and 7. I think the presentation of the results is the weakest part of the manuscript.

Consequently, even the implications reported in paragraph 5 do not appear to be sufficiently sustained by evidence.

I also suggest checking: a) explanation (product versus products) and style of the source into table 2; b) style of the source into table 3; c) the unit of measurement into table 4 (10,000 US dollars versus a total of 25115.9 US dollars); d) data regarding “13 species of live don-keys” in the line 235; e) the NET value of -0,5 in the line 259; f) the average NET values (0.96 and 0.51) in the line 468.