The Comparative Study On China's And Japan's Competitiveness Of Exportation Of Electronic Products

Electronic products are hi-tech products which are developing rapidly and applied widely. Since the Reform and Opening-up policy, the electronic industry has gradually become the pillar industry of China's national economy with the support from both governmental and foreign investment. Based on the import-export statistics of 2009, it can be concluded that China's electronic industry is highly exportation-oriented, and the international market share of China's electronic products is already higher than that of Japan which has traditional absolute advantages in producing and exporting electronic products. However, the improvement of international market share cannot prove that the competitiveness of exportation is also enhancing. Therefore on the basis of existed theories and researches, this research paper is aiming at evaluating and comparing the competitiveness of exportation of electronic products in China and Japan in the U.S. market comprehensively within the frame of logical evaluation, using principal component analysis.Before the empirical analyses, this research paper analyzes the changes of volume and structure of electronic products exported from China and Japan to the U.S. from 1992 to 2009. In the year of 2003, the export volume of China's electronic products to the U.S. exceeded that of Japan. From the point of view of export structure, it can be found that the share of SITC 75 in China's export is expanding every year whereas the share of SITC 75 in Japan's·export is shrinking. The electronic products exported from China to the U.S. contains equipped numerically-controlled machines, telecommunication products and other manufactured equipment, while Japan exports core parts of numerically-controlled machines, integrated circuits, semiconductors and micro modules.In order to support the conclusion of the qualitative analysis, this research paper applies revealed indices and principal component analysis in the evaluation system to compare the export competitiveness of China and Japan. Firstly, by computing the export similarity index, it is demonstrated that the competition between electronic products exported from China and Japan to the U.S. are gradually becoming fiercely since products of the two countries are showing more and more similarities from 1992 to 2009. Moreover, by calculating the value-added index and the export structure index, it is shown that China's export structure of electronic products has already been in a logical shape. The higher the added value of the product is, the higher the international market share of the product occupied. China's export structure of electronic products has already been similar to that in a traditional industrialized country. In the main part of this research paper's empirical study, five indices are selected to describe the export volume, export structure, export qualities, and the increasing speed of the exportation of the years of 1993,2001, and 2009. In order to compare the overall competitiveness of exportation of the two countries, principal component analysis is implemented to integrate the five indices above. The result of the empirical study proved that during these 18 years, China's competitiveness of exportation of electronic products in the U.S. market is becoming more and more vigorous, if the types and natures of the exporting enterprises are not considered. In contrast, the competitiveness of exportation of Japan's electronic products keeps descending, and the speed of the descent in the second 9 years is faster than the first 9 years. Comparing the two countries'competitiveness of exportation, in the years from 1993 to 2001, Japan's competitiveness of exportation was higher than that of China, and the gap was narrowing. In the year of 2009, China's competitiveness of exportation has exceeded that of Japan.However, the processing trade accounts for a great proportion of China's electronic products exported to the U.S., and foreign-funded enterprises take a lead in the exportation of China's electronic products. Therefore, foreign investment is the main driving force of the improvement of China's competitiveness of exportation and optimization of China's export structure. Inorder to realize the actual improvement of China's core competitiveness, China needs to seize the opportunity of the deep arrangement of the global electronic industry in the post-economic-crisis era to accelerate the upgrading of China's electronic industry.