The scale of trade continues to expand, but the proportion of the gradual decline in the trade volume. 1993 to 1996, Sino-Japanese trade volume accounted for the proportion of China's foreign trade has been maintained at more than 20%, and began to decline in 1997, down to 11.8% in 2005. The share of exports to Japan in China's total foreign trade exports dropped from 15.7% in 2000 to 9.4% in 2006, and rebounded slightly to 10.8% in 2007.
The growth rate is lower than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade. from 2000 to 2005, the average annual growth rate of China-Japan trade was 17.3%, which is far lower than the overall annual growth rate of China's foreign trade of 24.6%. 2007 China's import and export of foreign trade grew by 23.5%, and the growth rate of China-Japan trade was only 13.9%.
The commodity structure has been optimized, and mechanical and electrical products have become the main commodities for import and export. In China's exports to Japan, the proportion of raw materials is gradually reduced, and the proportion of textile, electromechanical, optical and medical equipment and other manufactured goods is greatly increased. The proportion of mineral products exported to Japan in China's total exports to Japan dropped from 20.06% in 1992 to 3.38% in 2005; the proportion of electromechanical, audio and video equipment and their parts and accessories exported to Japan increased from 4.36% in 1992 to 33.7% in 2006, and electromechanical products became the first major category of commodities exported by China to Japan. China's imports from Japan have always been dominated by high-value-added manufactured goods, of which the proportion of electromechanical, audio-visual equipment and its parts and accessories has exceeded 50%.
China and Japan have their own advantages in trade, but China is generally in a weaker position. According to the Sino-Japanese intra-industry trade index measurement results show that since the 1990s, the intra-industry trade index between China and Japan in the field of electromechanical products, optics, medical equipment, chemical products, etc. are more inclined to 1. This shows that in these industries, especially in the electromechanical industry, Sino-Japanese intra-industry trade is more and more active, and Sino-Japanese trade is moving towards the direction of leveling, which is the result of the internationalization of production, and is the result of the Sino-Japanese trade between capital, labor, technology and goods. This is the result of the internationalization of production and the acceleration of the flow of capital, labor, technology and goods between China and Japan. Of course, this horizontal division of labor still has obvious gradient characteristics: China's comparative advantage products are mainly labor-intensive and some capital-intensive products, while Japan's comparative advantage lies in technology-intensive products; China has a strong comparative advantage in the primary processing of products, while Japan's advantage lies in the deep processing of products and the depth of the development of science and technology; from the point of view of the position of the industrial chain, China is only involved in the assembly and processing of products, while Japan's advantage lies in the deep processing of products and the deep development of science and technology. In terms of its position in the industrial chain, China is only involved in the assembly and processing of products, while the design and development of products are basically still carried out by the parent company in Japan. This division of labor is reflected in the commodity structure: in the same category of commodities, Japan mainly exports to China various types of engines and parts, processing machine tools, digital program-controlled switches, integrated circuits and other high technology content of the core components of the products, while China mainly exports to Japan refrigerators, fans and other household appliances, as well as calculators, computer monitors, telephones and other processed and assembled finished products. Therefore, although the trade structure of China and Japan has improved considerably, each with its own comparative advantage, but China is still in a weaker position, and the position of the two sides in the industrial chain has not changed fundamentally.
China's trade deficit has increased, and the balance of trade is becoming increasingly imbalanced. Since the 1990s, the trade balance between China and Japan has been in a dynamic change, but the overall situation of China's deficit is predominant. According to China's statistics, during the 17 years from 1990 to 2006, China had a surplus for 7 years, totaling 9.91 billion U.S. dollars, and a deficit for 10 years, totaling 97.32 billion U.S. dollars. Starting from 2002, China's trade deficit showed a trend of expanding year by year. 2006 China's trade deficit with Japan reached US$24.08 billion, and in 2007 it reached US$31.95 billion. The reason for the gradual imbalance between China and Japan's trade balance is that, on the one hand, with the development of the economy, China's imports of advanced equipment, raw materials and parts necessary for industrial production from Japan have increased rapidly; on the other hand, some Japanese enterprises in China have changed their production from being sold back to Japan to being exported to other countries, which has led to a decrease in the number of China's exports to Japan and an increase in the trade deficit.
Characteristics of Japan's investment in China
Japan's investment in China started in 1980, and has been increasing since then. from 1990 to 1999, the cumulative number of Japan's direct investment in China reached 17,706 projects, with the total amount of agreed foreign investment amounting to 32.31 billion U.S. dollars, and the amount of actual use of foreign investment amounting to 22.63 billion U.S. dollars. Since entering the 21st century, Japan's FDI in China has shown a trend of rapid growth, and from 2000 to 2006, the actual amount of Japan's FDI in China amounted to 33.32 billion US dollars. By the end of October 2007, the cumulative amount of Japan's investment in China was 60.78 billion U.S. dollars. Japan's investment in China is characterized by the following features:
The scale of investment has been expanding continuously, and the growth rate has been increasing and decreasing. From the point of view of the number of investment projects, Japan's investment in China reached a historical peak in 1993 (3488), declining year by year, before and after the Asian financial crisis once fell to 1167 in 1999, since 2000, by China's accession to the WTO after the market to further open up the impact of Japan's investment in China once again a climax, in 2004, reached 3454, from 2005 and From 2005 to 2007, the number of Japanese investment in China started to decline, with 2,590 projects in 2006 and 1,794 projects in 2007. In terms of the amount of agreed foreign investment and the actual amount of foreign investment utilized by Japanese investment in China, both began to grow in 1992. The agreed amount reached a peak of 7.59 billion US dollars in 1995, and the actual utilization amount reached a peak of 4.33 billion US dollars in 1997. Subsequently, both showed different degrees of downward trend. Starting from 2000, Japan's investment in China gradually rebounded, with the contract amount close to 12 billion U.S. dollars and the actual utilization amount of 6.53 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, the highest in history, and then began to decline in 2006, falling to 3.59 billion U.S. dollars in 2007. The average size of Japan's investment in China has basically remained at 2 million to 3 million dollars since the mid-1990s, indicating that small and medium-sized projects still dominate Japan's investment in China.
Japan's actual investment in China accounted for a gradual decline in the proportion of China's utilization of foreign capital. The proportion of Japan's actual utilization of China once reached 15% in 1990, but after 1992, it has always been less than 10%, accounting for 7.3% in 2006 and 4.8% in 2007. According to the survey results of relevant Japanese organizations, influenced by the relevant reports published by Japanese officials, and out of the consideration of diversifying investment risks, in recent years, Japanese enterprises have warmed up their investment in Southeast Asia and other countries. Nevertheless, China is still the best choice for Japanese companies to invest overseas.
The field of investment has been broadened and the investment structure has been upgraded gradually. In the total amount of Japanese investment in China, the manufacturing sector has an absolute advantage, accounting for 78.9% in 2005, which is equivalent to more than three times of the investment in China's service industry during the same period. 2002, the transportation machinery manufacturing industry has replaced the electromechanical industry to become the first major category of Japanese investment in China's manufacturing industry, which to a certain extent reflects the deepening of the Sino-Japanese economic cooperation relationship. After 2001, the investment of Japanese enterprises in China's commercial and financial and insurance industries gradually increased. Such signs indicate that with the gradual relaxation of China's restrictions on foreign investment in the field, the industrial structure of Japanese enterprises' investment in China's manufacturing industry tends to be more advanced, and the status of their investment in China in their global industrial division of labor is further enhanced. At the same time, the enterprise's investment in non-manufacturing fields has increased, covering an increasingly wide range of industries.
The regional distribution of investment has been adjusted, with coastal areas remaining the focus. From the mid- to late 1990s, Japanese companies invested in China gradually from China's Northeast, North China and South China to the East China Economic Circle, Shanghai and the surrounding areas such as Suzhou, Nantong, Nanjing and other areas to become the main object of investment by Japanese companies. 2005, according to the distribution of regional statistics, Japan invested in China's top five provinces and cities are located in the coastal areas, the total amount of investment accounted for 77.5 percent of Japan's total investment in China. 77.5%.
Changing investment strategies and adjusting market targets. Compared with the early stage of Japanese investment in China, the purpose of Japanese enterprises to invest in China has changed greatly. Cheap labor is no longer the main reason for Japanese enterprises to invest in China, China's increasing production capacity and the digestive capacity of the Chinese domestic market has gradually become the main factor attracting Japanese investment. From the point of view of investment strategy in China, Japan's investment in China since the 1990s has gradually developed in the direction of advanced, comprehensive and diversified, and transformed from labor-intensive to technology-intensive. In terms of the market, the mode of Japanese direct investment in China has shifted from the two types of outside production and processing trade type to the local production and local sales of access to the market type of investment strategy.