Global ginseng trade networks: structural characteristics and influencing factors

Background: Ginseng is a rare and highly valued Chinese materia medica with a rich trading history and has a wide range of application, including medicine, food, healthcare, and daily chemical production. However, the global trade of ginseng exhibits diverse features and uneven development across different countries and regions. Surprisingly, the intricate network relationship and the underlying characteristics and influencing factors of ginseng trade networks remain unexplored. Methods: This study analyzed ginseng trade data obtained from the UN-Comtrade database and used social network analysis to construct global ginseng trade networks. To elucidate the structural characteristics, we analyzed the indicators of the overall network structure and node attributes. Core-periphery analysis is used to examine the evolutionary patterns within the global ginseng trade networks. Furthermore, we apply the quadratic assignment procedure to investigate the impact and relevance of spatial proximity, cultural differences, economic indicators, population size, technological similarity, and institutional distance. Results: The findings reveal that the global ginseng trade networks exhibit typical small-world and scale-free properties, as well as a core-periphery structure. Several core countries, including China, South Korea, Germany, and the United States, exert significant control over both trade volume and trade partners. South Korea and China initially occupied central positions in the export market due to their resource endowments, their prominence has gradually diminished with the ascendancy of Germany and the United States. According to the core-periphery analysis, the ginseng trade has shown a gradual concentration within specific trade groups comprising core and semi-periphery countries, most of which are along the “Belt and Road” religion. We also found that geographic distance and GDP per capita exert negative effects on ginseng trade, while factors such as land adjacency, technology and economic gap, population size, and institution similarity play significant positive roles. Conclusion: The global ginseng trade has experienced increasing concentration and close linkage among a limited numbers of participants. It is crucial to pay close attention to the relationship between ginseng industry development and resource conservation. Strategies such as expanding trade channels, implementing trade substitution measures, and optimizing the quality and standards of ginseng products can effectively enhance trade security.