Aresearch Into Production Capacity Cooperation Between China And Central Asian Countries Under The Belt And Road Initiative

Since the international financial crisis,global trade and investment growth has been weak and the world economy has entered a period of structural adjustment.China’s commodity trade to Central Asian countries has declined markedly,and China’s outward direct investment in Central Asian countries has also experienced large fluctuations.Regional economic cooperation lacks sustained and stable growth momentum,and traditional trade-led ways of regional economic cooperation are facing challenges.The Belt and Road Initiative offers a historic opportunity to develop capacity cooperation between China and Central Asian countries.From the perspective of regional economic cooperation between China and Central Asia,carrying out capacity cooperation in the industrial field is a common realistic choice for both sides to seek new space for economic cooperation,consolidate energy cooperation and promote comprehensive economic cooperation.China and Central Asian countries have been carrying out capacity cooperation for more than four years,and important progress has been made in policy docking,the construction of cooperative mechanisms and specific projects,the effect of promoting regional economic cooperation has been initially demonstrated.Although some progress has been made,it is far from attaining positive interaction between industry and investment and driving large-scale investment and trade cooperation,and needs further deepening.On the basis of defining the core concepts such as capacity cooperation and by using the relevant theories of regional economic cooperation and international division of labor,this paper first expounds the mechanism,principle and theoretical analysis framework of capacity cooperation,analyzes and summarizes the basis and present situation of capacity cooperation between China and Central Asian countries,and secondly,empirically studies the influencing factors of its cooperation,analyzes the characteristics and comparative advantages of industrial development in various countries,evaluates the overall environment and specific environment of their cooperation,and finally,on the basis of the above analysis,puts forward the concrete path of capacity cooperation.The main research findings are as follows:1.Through the theoretical and empirical study on the influencing factors of capacity cooperation,we find that: economic factors are the decisive factors affecting the capacity cooperation.Factors such as the abundance of mineral resources,the degree of economic openness and the level of bilateral trade with China have a positive effect on capacity cooperation,while the labor cost,industrial technology level,political stability and security of the cooperating countries,as well as the degree of economic and technical cooperation between China and the cooperating countries,play a negative role in capacity cooperation.Therefore,in carrying out capacity cooperation,we should actively expand cooperation in energy capacity,steadily promote and consolidate bilateral trade cooperation,promote foreign project contracting to foreign direct investment conversion,and choose more complementary industries to cooperate.2.Through analysis of the overall industrial characteristics and factor intensity properties of China and Central Asian countries,it is shown that since 2003,the industrial structure of most countries in Central Asia has been continuously optimized,the proportion of primary industry has been declining,and the proportion of tertiary industries has gradually increased,forming an industrial structure dominated by the tertiary industry and with a relatively small proportion of secondary industries.From the perspective of the characteristics of production factors in industrial development,it is shown that the industrial development of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is gradually biased towards non-resource areas,and the development of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan industries is biased towards the field of resources.3.Through an analysis of the comparative advantages of China and Central Asian countries in 36 industrial categories,we found that:In labor-intensive industries,China has a significant comparative advantage in the vast majority of industries,the Central Asian countries,with the exception of Uzbekistan,Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have certain comparative advantages in the textile and garment industry,and other countries do not have a comparative advantage in the remaining labor-intensive industries.In capital-intensive industries,China has a comparative advantage in a few industries,such as chemical fiber and ferrous metal smelting,and Central Asian countries generally have a strong comparative advantage in metal smelting industry;In resource-intensive industries,China does not have a comparative advantage in all industries other than power supply,while Central Asian countries have a strong comparative advantage in such industries;In technology-intensive industries,China has a certain comparative advantage in the manufacturing of computers,communications and other electronic equipment,general machinery and equipment manufacturing,railway ships and spacecraft manufacturing,and the Central Asian countries do not have a comparative advantage in most industries.4.Through the analysis of entropy weight,the overall environment of capacity cooperation and the specific environment of four kinds of industries are analyzed,and the results show that the overall environment,capital-intensive and resource-intensive industrial environment of Kazakhstan is superior to other countries,but its labor-intensive and technology-intensive industrial environment is inferior to Uzbekistan;the cooperative environment of labor-intensive and technology-intensive industries of Uzbekistan ranks the first,and its overall environment and capital-intensive industrial environment is in the second place,resource-intensive industrial environment is in the third place;the overall environment and capital-intensive industrial environment of Kyrgyzstan is in the middle position;the overall environment of the Turkmenistan ranks in the fourth place while resource-intensive industrial environment ranks in the second place,other industrial environment in the middle and lower position;the overall environment of the Tajikistan is at the bottom and its labor-intensive industrial environment occupies the third place.5.Through the previous analysis,according to the differences of industrial comparative advantage,industrial development characteristics and capacity cooperation environment in different countries,the capacity cooperation path for four kinds of industries is constructed respectively:In labor-intensive industries,we should focus on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,make full use of the aggregation effect of industrial parks and widely mobilize social capital to invest in textile and garment manufacturing factories;take the opportunity of infrastructure upgrading in Central Asian countries to guide enterprises to establish non-metallic mineral manufacturing plants in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan;focus on Kazakhstan,take the advantages of its metal resource extraction and smelting,develop production and construction of metal products industry capacity cooperation.In capital-intensive industries,we should focus on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan,develop the production capacity cooperation in chemical industry by means of investment in the construction of factories.For Kazakhstan with better resource conditions,it is important to consider using industrial alliance to construct an industrial chain cooperation model integrating metal resource extraction,smelting and metal products manufacturing.In resource-intensive industries,steadily promote capacity cooperation in the traditional energy fields with Kazakhstan,Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,participating in overseas oil and gas extraction and deep processing in the form of joint ventures and equity participation;takes the opportunity of developing new and renewable sources of energy in Central Asian countries to build new energy power plants in the form of joint ventures with Uzbekistan;establish offshore mining and processing base for metal mineral resources in Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.In technology-intensive industries,make full use of the opportunities in the transportation and Energy infrastructure upgrading along the belt and Road,guide enterprises to set up construction and electrical machinery and equipment assembly plants in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan;take advantage of the opportunities of domestic automobile manufacturing industry structure adjustment,promote the establishment of domestic independent brand automobile enterprises to establish automobile assembly production line in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.