Bilateral cooperation effects for promoting the internationalization of geographical indications

The internationalization of geographical indications lags notably behind that of traditional intellectual property. Bilateral cooperation acts as a vital initiative to promote internationalization by enabling mutual recognition and protection through the selection of high-quality geographical indications. The China-EU geographical indication agreement is the most important bilateral cooperation agreement in recent years. The continuous difference-in-differences model is constructed based on this agreement for evaluating bilateral cooperation effects. The results show that bilateral cooperation not only generates significant trade promotion effects, but also exhibits heterogeneity. The export promotion effect is more significant in China’s inland and low-urbanized areas, and the import promotion effect is more significant across Belt and Road Initiative countries. Therefore, it is essential to deepen the China-EU cooperation on geographical indications. Meanwhile, the quality-driven mechanism and trade promotion effect of bilateral cooperation should be leveraged to foster high-standard and scaled development of geographical indication industries. This will spur the generation of new quality productive forces in agriculture and offset adverse impacts of rising trade protectionism on agricultural development.