Since joining the WTO, my country's foreign trade has experienced strong growth, and its dependence on foreign trade has also increased sharply. my country's foreign trade dependence has exceeded the world average level, and is much higher than that of the United States, Japan, India, Brazil and other economic powers. On the one hand, this shows that China’s participation in the global integration process has accelerated. The demand from foreign markets has become an important driving force for my country’s domestic economic growth. Our economy and the world economy have formed an interdependent partnership. On the other hand, excessive trade dependence has also It has exposed many shortcomings such as the concentration of my country's trade destinations, the unreasonable structure of foreign trade commodities, and the increasing dependence on imports of strategic resource products.
According to the popular calculation method, foreign trade dependence refers to the ratio of a country’s total foreign trade to its gross domestic product. It is not only used to measure a country’s economic dependence on the international market, but also reflects The degree of economic openness of a country. International experience shows that only examining the degree of foreign trade dependence in terms of numbers and total trade volume cannot truly measure the degree of my country's economic dependence on foreign trade, because there are many factors that affect and exaggerate my country's foreign trade dependence. Specifically, the reasons for my country's high dependence on foreign trade are analyzed as follows:
Processing trade accounts for a large proportion of the foreign trade structure. In 2005, the total import and export volume of processing trade was US$690.5 billion, accounting for 48.6% of the total import and export volume, accounting for almost half of the total trade volume. Since external processing only charges a small labor fee, there is not much added value, and the domestic procurement and matching rate is also low. That is, China imports a large amount of raw materials and intermediate products from other countries, assembles them, and then exports them abroad. This inflow and outflow are summed up and divided by the GDP of that year, which makes the foreign trade dependence obviously have an inflated increase.
The domestic industrial structure is dominated by manufacturing, with a low proportion of the tertiary industry, which is an important reason for high dependence on foreign trade. Generally speaking, due to the low tradability of the tertiary industry, the higher the proportion of the tertiary industry in the GDP composition, the lower the dependence on foreign trade may be. At present, the proportion of the tertiary industry in the GDP of the United States has exceeded 75%, while in my country it is only about 33%.
The growth rate of foreign trade is significantly higher than the growth rate of GDP. The denominator - the GDP growth rate has averaged only around 9 in recent years, but the numerator - the average growth rate of foreign trade imports and exports has reached over 30. When GDP maintains a relatively stable growth rate, the higher the growth rate of foreign trade, the faster the relative growth rate, and the higher the dependence on foreign trade.
Changes in exchange rates directly affect the level of foreign trade dependence. Overall, the undervaluation of the RMB is another important reason for my country’s increased dependence on foreign trade. Calculated according to the current exchange rate, my country's foreign trade dependence is indeed high. However, according to purchasing power parity estimates by the World Bank, the purchasing power ratio of the RMB to the US dollar is 4:1. Based on this calculation, my country's foreign trade dependence will be reduced by half, which is lower than the world average.
my country's high dependence on foreign trade is an inevitable reflection of my country's economic structure that relies too heavily on foreign-invested enterprises. According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, among the 200 enterprises with the largest export volume in the country in 2004, 77 were foreign-invested enterprises; among the 500 enterprises with the largest import and export volume, 62 were foreign-invested enterprises. In terms of the numerator of the ratio of foreign trade dependence, a large part of my country's huge foreign trade is actually created by foreign-invested enterprises in China. Especially in terms of exports, the export volume of foreign-invested enterprises is greater than the export volume of other enterprises. From 2001 to 2004, the exports of foreign-invested enterprises accounted for 50.1, 52.2, 54.8 and 57.1 of my country's total exports, respectively. From the denominator of this ratio, GDP also includes the contribution of foreign-invested enterprises in China. However, since the main characteristics of foreign-invested enterprises are "big in and big out, both ends are outside." , the foreign trade tendency is much higher than that of other domestic enterprises. It can be seen that the business behavior of foreign-invested enterprises of "big in and big out, with both ends outside" has also increased their dependence on foreign trade to a certain extent.
The impact of increased dependence on foreign trade on my country's economy
In fact, foreign trade dependence is a "double-edged sword". On the one hand, its improvement and changes make our country more proactive in participating. The international economy has improved our country's economic status and influence. On the other hand, it has also brought new risks and impacts to our country's economic development. In general, as my country's foreign trade continues to grow, the continued growth in foreign trade dependence will have varying degrees of impact on foreign trade and domestic economic development. These impacts mainly include:
Foreign trade frictions intensify
As the scale of my country's exports continues to expand, my country's exports have encountered a significant increase in foreign anti-dumping and safeguard measures investigations. During the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period, the number of anti-dumping cases filed in my country were: 55 in 2001, 51 in 2002, 47 in 2003, and 57 in 2004. In 2005, my country's foreign trade frictions entered a "high-incidence period" and it has been subject to multiple anti-dumping investigations by the United States, the European Union, India and other countries and regions. Our country has become the country that has suffered the most anti-dumping investigations in the world. In addition, issues such as countervailing subsidies, green barriers, and technical barriers have also become ways for some other countries and regions to deal with domestically produced products. It can be seen that the development of my country's foreign trade and the continuous increase in foreign trade dependence have inevitably brought my country's foreign trade into an era of international economic friction.
Affects national economic security
High dependence on imports of energy, mineral resources, certain key equipment and parts can easily put the country's economic lifeline at the mercy of others. Once the international economy experiences major fluctuations, the domestic economy will inevitably experience some difficulties. At present, my country's oil dependence on foreign countries is about 35%. According to expert estimates, by 2020, my country's oil dependence on foreign countries will reach 60%, and more than half of my country's oil supply will rely on international supplies. How to effectively reduce China's dependence on foreign countries for important strategic resources is an important problem that we need to pay serious attention to and solve. In addition, my country's current imported goods are mainly industrial products, of which capital products and high-tech products dominate. This reflects the high dependence of my country's domestic industries on international high-tech and capital goods, and reflects the scientific research and development of my country's domestic industries. relatively lagging. As the import volume of important strategic materials, key products and technologies continues to grow, the impact of imports on national economic security will further increase.
Influence on domestic industrial development
my country's high dependence on foreign trade is mainly reflected in its comparative advantage in the export of labor-intensive products. Therefore, textiles, clothing, footwear, toys and other products have always been my country's bulk export commodities, but these industries have actually experienced oversupply, and the continuous expansion of such low value-added industries is not conducive to the upgrading of my country's domestic industrial structure. , increasing the difficulty of achieving the goal of improving foreign trade competitiveness. The ever-increasing dependence on foreign trade highlights the reality that the development of my country's industrial structure is unreasonable and the development of the tertiary industry is still lagging behind.
Deteriorating terms of trade
my country exports mainly labor-intensive products and imports mainly capital- and technology-intensive products. Generally speaking, the former has a relatively high price elasticity of supply and demand, while the latter has a relatively low price elasticity of supply and demand. This asymmetry in the price elasticity of supply and demand has resulted in my country's dependence on demand for imported products for capital- and technology-intensive products being greater than other countries' dependence on my country's supply. In particular, the demand price elasticity of energy and various resource products that my country has imported in large quantities in recent years is relatively low. In other words, no matter what changes in prices in the international market, my country's import demand will maintain a certain growth, and my country is a Once a large country imports a large amount, it will also cause an increase in international market prices. This will not only increase our country's dependence on overseas energy and other products, but also worsen the terms of trade and reduce our economic welfare.