The Comparisons Of The Competitiveness Of Services Industry Among China, Korea And Japan

Glancing over the world economy, services economy charactered by services industry and services trade is springing up and becomes an outstanding character of the world economy development. Developing gradually, services trade, which acts as the bridge connecting the world activities of economy and trade and operation of transnational enterprises together, shows its special functions and occupies a significant position in the adjusting process of world industries and markets. While services industry holds a more and more important proportion in the foreign trades of countries, services trade has already turned into the primary content of present international competition. Whether owning competitive services industry and services trade has become one of the keys deciding nations would success in the world competition. Especially, along the development of information technology, some of the nontradable services become tradable, and the global manufacturing nature of service industry is enhancing gradually and promoting the international level of the whole nation on a certain extent. Thus, the competitiveness of services trade has important effects on improving the competitiveness of the whole nation.However, because of the effects of economy developing strategy of "Industrialization-based" which exists for a long term, China has entered into the middle stage of industrialization, her services industry is still lagged, and the competitiveness of her services trade is still very low. At present, the structure of world economy industry, the commodity composition of international trade and the structure of FDI are all facing the shift from industry to service. In a much more free and convenient circumstance which is formed by the push of WTO, global and regional economy integration, international service trade develops rapidly. Especially, in the process of performing promises of WTO accession, China faces formidable challenges. In a word, the development of services industry and the promotion of services trade competitiveness are turning into one of the keys which affect the development of national economy, the promotion of international competitiveness, the increase of welfare from the liberalization of international trade, and the realizing of regional economic integration in China. As Michael Peter said, "When the international competition of services industry is hotter, more professional and sophisticated, whether an enterprise of a nation has services competitive advantage will be a significant topic in the future. " "With the growth of international trade generating industry division and specialization, if the governments would no longer protect or develop their disadvantaged industries, their market positions will have a bigger divergence for their different market competitiveness. Published by the General Office under the China State Council on March 19, 2007, " Suggestions on the Speeding the Development of Seivices Industry" emphasizes the importance and significance to develop services industry from the point of the State's policy.In a word, study on the status and effects of the development of services industry and the competitiveness of services trade of China has become one of the topics which have a great theoretical and practice significance in the development of China's economy and trade.Thus, according to the inference that there is no sense if the international competitiveness is not studied with comparison, this paper chooses the developing country-China, the new industrialized country-Republic of Korea (Korea), and the developed country- Japan to compare internationally for that they are near in region, close in institution and culture, promoting FTA and continuous and ensuing in economy development. This paper compares the competitiveness of services trade of the three countries, and gives a detailed analysis of status and affecting factors on the competitiveness of China's service trade.On the basis of Chapter II and Chapter III, Chapter IV chooses eleven indexes in four fields of labor productivity, international market occupation, the export of services trade, and the import and export of services trade to analyze the actual and potential international competitiveness of China, Korea and Japan. China has an outstanding actual and potential international competitive advantage on the traditional labor-intensive services trade, such as tourism, wholesale and retail industry, while she has an obvious current and potential international competitive disadvantage on the new technology and capital intensive services trade, such as finance and insurance industry, computer and information service, franchise service and so on. As a result, China as at a disadvantage in the competition of international services trade in which the new services trade takes a dominant position.Because of the lower international competitiveness of China's services trade, especially these new kinds, China's services trade and national economy are facing significant challenges in the circumstance in which services trade liberalization becomes more and more strong and the domestic services market opens more and more deeply. In a word, China should analyze the effecting factors of competitiveness of services trade and put forward corresponding suggestions to improve China's services trade competitiveness and solving these challenges.Then chapter V chooses nine indexes in the six fields of services industry development, goods trade development, the flow of FDI, production recourses which include labor force, human capital and science and technology, domestic service demands, and the organizational structure of industry to analyze the key influence factors of international competitiveness of services trade in China, Korea and Japan. The author finds that human capital and science and technology are the two main factors increasing China's service trade competitiveness. The development of services industry and FDI of services industry are the two weak points affecting China's services trade competitiveness. Services demands and the development of goods trade affect the three countries similarly. It is extremely difficult to do the quantitative analysis of organizational structure of industry, but it is proved that it has effects on the national competitiveness of services trade to a certain extent.According to the above analysis, there are two advantageous factors and two disadvantageous factors in the promotion of China's services trade competitiveness. The two advantageous factors are human capital and science and technology, while the two disadvantageous factors are the development of services industry and FDI flow into services industry. In order to improve services trade competitiveness and the country competitiveness, China must strengthen the two advantageous factors to generate "leading effect" , and at the same time, improve the two disadvantageous factors to weaken "cask effect" , because all influence factors are a holonomic system.Chapter VI designs four Calculation models to analyze the influence factors on the process of Pareto improvement of the two advantageous factors and two disadvantageous factors, and find the special main influence factors on the four factors.Finally, because of that "all keys are interdependent in the Diamond System, and the effect arising from any factor is based on the cooperation with others" and "Diamond System is a mutual affected system, each internal factor could strengthen or change the performance of other factors" and "an industry which need to keep or improve its own competitive advantages relies on the mutual influences, cooperation, strengthening of all the keys. " and "On the level of country advantage, it is more important to establish an integrate industry system than to emphasize the industry' s unilateral performance. " , the corresponding suggestions to improve a nation services trade competitiveness should be complete and synthetical, but not unilateral.Chapter VII puts forward the synthetical suggestions to improve China's services trade competitiveness on the basis of chapter V and chapter VI. These suggestions include six aspects: promoting the development of services industry to form the basis of services trade competitiveness, strengthening R&D input and labor training to obtain First-Mover Advantage, attracting FDI into services industry, coordinating the development of services trade and goods trade, pushing the market process of services trade, performing "Going Out" strategy to consolidate international operations of services enterprises.