Keywords: export commodities; Structure; foreign direct investment (FDI)
1 China's export commodity structure
1. 1 has a low-end trade structure, few high-tech products and low added value.
(1) The proportion of high-tech products in finished products is still increasing at a low level.
As shown in table 1, from 2000 to 2006, the proportion of China's high-tech products in manufactured goods exports increased from 14. 1% to 30.6%, an increase of 16.5 percentage points. The proportion of high-tech products in China's export commodity structure has steadily increased, and the contribution rate of high-tech industry development to the upgrading of foreign trade commodity structure has increased significantly. However, compared with the average level of 47% of the world's high-tech products exports (56% in the United States) in the same period, there is still a big gap. From a global perspective, the world trade volume (in terms of exports) in 2006 was US$ 654.38 billion, of which China's exports were US$ 654.38+0.4210.9 trillion, accounting for 654.38+03.76% of the world's exports. However, according to the World Development Indicators 2007 of the World Bank, in 2006, the global export market share of high-tech products was US$ 654.38+04.206 billion (as shown in Figure 654.38+0), with the United States accounting for 37%, Europe 27%, Japan 654.38+08%, South Korea 4% and China only 3%. Visible, in China's high export share, the export of high-tech products is very small. In addition, the export range of high-tech products in China is narrow, mainly concentrated in a few categories such as computers, communication equipment and electronic products. The slow development of high-tech components in export products has seriously hindered China's progress as a trading power.
(2) The export of finished products is still dominated by labor-intensive products with low added value.
From the perspective of intra-industry trade, China's export commodities are still the trade between labor-intensive products and capital-technology-intensive products, which is a typical inter-industry trade that reflects the comparative advantage based on the endowment of production factors. This kind of inter-industry trade, which mainly focuses on the export of labor-intensive products, has many adverse effects on the development of China's foreign trade. In most parts of China, the labor-intensive production links in labor-intensive products are only transformed into labor-intensive production links in capital-intensive and technology-intensive products, and the added value of products has not been significantly improved. The overall export commodities have a low position in the international division of labor and are at the low end of the industrial chain. As a result, the profit rate of products is not high, and it is easy to be influenced by the changes of cost factors such as international exchange rate in the fierce international trade competition, so it is difficult to create a stable export development environment. 1.2 is heavily dependent on foreign capital, and its ability to resist risks is not strong.
Although China's foreign trade has developed rapidly, the growth of its export trade depends heavily on foreign-invested enterprises. In recent 10 years, the proportion of foreign-invested enterprises in China's foreign trade exports has been increasing. However, due to the lack of intellectual property rights and most core technologies in China, the massive export of foreign-funded enterprises in China has only brought workers' remuneration and some raw material expenses to China, leaving behind environmental pollution. China's actual trade benefits or gains are very limited. Foreign-invested enterprises move the processing and assembly links in the international industrial chain to China, make full use of China's abundant and cheap labor resources, and seek greater profits by controlling the import of raw materials and the export of finished products. Processing trade has the characteristics of "two ends in the outside, big import and big export". Most of China's huge foreign trade is created by foreign-invested enterprises through processing trade. The rapid development of processing trade has also increased the dependence on exports and imports. It is worth mentioning that this excessive dependence on foreign capital has reduced China's ability to resist risks. In the world economic crisis triggered by American subprime mortgage in the second half of 2008, many foreign investors were unable to protect themselves and withdrew their funds to reduce production, which had a considerable impact on China's real economy.
1.3 The development paradox is prominent: the contradiction of upgrading and rationalization of export structure is prominent.
According to david ricardo's comparative advantage theory and H-O's factor endowment theory, a country should focus on producing its own goods with comparative advantages and factor endowment advantages, so as to obtain the maximum trade benefits through international trade, realize Pareto optimality among countries and maximize overall welfare. At present, China is facing the emergence of a large number of urban labor and the transfer of surplus labor. The endowment of labor resources makes it seem that China should vigorously develop labor-intensive industries, which can not only obtain comparative benefits, but also solve the severe employment problem in society. On the other hand, although the export orientation of China's labor-intensive products can solve the employment problem of part of the labor force and the stable development of the whole social economy, it has become increasingly difficult to promote the optimization of the overall industrial structure and the upgrading of the export commodity structure. In the long run, if a country wants to be invincible in the international trade pattern, it must establish a dynamic comparative advantage, that is, a competitive advantage. According to American economist Michael. According to Porter's theory of national competitive advantage, the competitive advantage mainly depends on a country's innovation mechanism, and the continuously created elements (that is, promoting elements) are more durable than static elements, and their advantages will increase with the accumulation of knowledge. The competitive advantages of Japan, South Korea and other countries come from this constantly created factor advantage. With the rapid development of science and technology, a large number of new materials and energy sources are available, and the relative importance of primary elements (natural resources, ordinary labor, etc.) decreases. ) will be further reduced and the importance of dynamic competitive advantage will be further strengthened. The export of a large number of labor-intensive products that China relies on now is mostly based on the extensive use of primary factors and lacks long-term competitiveness. According to this thinking, it seems that China should develop more technology-intensive industries with high added value and high technology content.
2. Ways and countermeasures to optimize China's export structure
2. 1 Implement the strategy of rejuvenating trade through science and technology, increase R&D investment and increase the added value of export products.
Only with a solid scientific and technological foundation can we realize the structural adjustment of export commodities as soon as possible, thus greatly improving the international competitiveness of China's export commodities. To optimize the structure of export commodities and improve international competitiveness, we must first strive to expand the export of high-tech and high value-added mechanical and electrical products. Mechanical and electrical products are the most competitive and potential export commodities in China in recent years, and are a new growth point of China's foreign trade export. Effective measures should be taken to encourage mechanical and electrical enterprises to keep up with the forefront of industrial technology development, boldly carry out technological innovation, and form the technical characteristics and technological advantages of China's mechanical and electrical products in the international market. At the same time, accelerate the combination of scientific research institutes and production enterprises, production enterprises and foreign trade enterprises, realize the integration of science, industry and trade, and promote the high-tech industrialization of mechanical and electrical products. After the formation of a large number of enterprises with independent intellectual property rights, more mechanical and electrical products will be pushed to the international market with a higher technical level, and finally the leading position of high-tech, high-tech capital-intensive goods in the export trade share will be realized.
2.2 Seize the opportunity of RMB appreciation and improve the level of export structure.
Since 2007, the RMB exchange rate has appreciated slowly, largely by restraining the export of low-tech and labor-intensive products with low added value and encouraging technology-intensive enterprises to export, thus realizing the upgrading of export structure. Admittedly, this will have a negative impact on the employment of low-quality labor in China. However, if China's exporters make good use of this opportunity of exchange rate adjustment and the favorable international trade environment created by the country to improve the quality management, brand management and technical content of their products in time, it will still be conducive to the adjustment of China's industrial structure and the sustained and healthy development of its economy, and can solve international trade disputes, balance international payments and upgrade China's industrial structure and export trade structure of finished products.
2.3 The introduction of foreign capital should be accompanied by a reasonable treatment of foreign capital.
First of all, in the process of introducing foreign capital in the future, we should improve the quality of FDI, encourage foreign investors to increase direct investment in technology research and development, strengthen the learning and absorption capacity of domestic enterprises, and strengthen exchanges with multinational companies in new technologies and management concepts, thus bringing more spillover effects and gradually improving China's position at the low end of the division of labor in the world economic environment. Secondly, on the one hand, encourage multinational companies to establish subcontractor or supplier relations with domestic enterprises, and strengthen the forward-backward relationship between them in this way to realize personnel training and technology transfer of multinational companies to domestic enterprises; On the other hand, set up domestic enterprise groups, concentrate domestic industrial advantages, policy advantages, location advantages and the advantages of production, technology, management and talents of various enterprises, encourage enterprise groups to compete with multinational companies in many aspects, and urge them to improve the technical content of their investment in China. Thirdly, by attracting foreign investment, we can guide foreign investors to invest in industries that are conducive to the optimization of export structure and limit the expansion of foreign direct investment to mature labor-intensive industries. Vigorously introduce foreign direct investment with high technical content and added value, and really promote the essential optimization of China's export commodity structure. Finally, it should be clear from the train of thought that enhancing our export competitiveness is the real purpose of improving China's export structure by using foreign capital. Foreign direct investment has made a very important contribution to improving China's export commodity structure, but excessive dependence on foreign capital also has its own shortcomings. Therefore, when using foreign capital, China must grasp a proper degree. The real purpose of improving China's export structure is to use foreign capital to develop leading industries and improve export competitiveness.
2.4 Comprehensive use of various economic means to strengthen macro-control of export commodities.
(1) Coordination of fiscal and taxation policies. Since 1980s, China has been implementing a tax rebate policy for the export of various commodities. Encouraged and guided by this preferential policy, many enterprises regard the national tax rebate as a normal profit, regardless of improving the technical content of their products. Under the care of this egalitarianism, on the one hand, foreign trade enterprises often lack cost-benefit constraints, on the other hand, national industrial policies cannot be effectively implemented. Therefore, the adjustment of export tax rebate is imperative. From 2005 to 2008, the Ministry of Finance made five adjustments to China's export tax rebate rate. The general direction of adjustment is to reduce and cancel the export tax rebate rate of some products with high energy consumption, high pollution and resources, and at the same time appropriately reduce the export tax rebate rate that is easy to cause trade friction such as textiles. The improvement of export structure has achieved good results. However, the intensity is still not enough, and the current export tax rebate rate in China is still far higher than the international average. Different standards should be formulated according to different industries: reducing the export tax rebate rate for raw material-intensive products and labor-intensive products; In this way, the blind export of primary products such as raw materials can be strictly controlled, and a higher export tax rebate rate can be implemented for export commodities with high technical content and large added value; In addition, for high-tech industries, income tax on their export products can be reduced, the export cost of high-tech products can be reduced, exports can be expanded, and the structure of export commodities can be further optimized.
(2) Coordination of financial policies. The adjustment of export commodity structure by market mechanism (mainly price mechanism) is often distorted by some economic factors (such as subsidies from competing countries) and non-economic factors (economic subjects' expectation and avoidance of political risks). Therefore, many high-tech industries with potential export advantages lack effective financing means and cannot obtain strong financial support due to factors such as incomplete market. In order to reflect the country's macro-control ability of export product structure, it is necessary to use financial policy to adjust the industrial structure moderately. For example, in order to encourage the export of an industrial product, we can use export seller's credit, export buyer's credit, set up various special research funds and improve the security system and other financial instruments. Encourage the establishment and development of high-tech industries, provide financing facilities and preferential treatment for enterprises, increase the technical content of export commodities and the export of high-tech products, and improve the international competitiveness of China's export commodities.