| With the increase of population, the decrease of fresh water reserves and water pollution, the shortage of water has become the important obstacle that restricts the economic and social sustainable development of our country. In recent years, virtual water problem attracts many scholars and they have conducted very fruitful theoretical exploration. Most results focus on watershed, regional economic system and research of industrial virtual water, while the empirical research on foreign trade is rare. In view of this, based on the concept of virtual water, this paper uses the input-output method to calculate the import and export virtual water in various industries in our country, establishes industry panel data model from aspects of import and export, analyze the influence factors of virtual water from the aspects of static state and dynamic stateSpecifically, the article is divided into seven parts. The first chapter briefly describes the research background, research significance and research methods. The second chapter summarizes and reviews the related literature on virtual water trade, and makes brief comments. The third chapter explores the theoretical foundation, and the mechanism of how the trade scales, trade structure and water intensity effect on the import and export of virtual water. The fourth chapter mainly analyzes the China’s foreign trade situation and the present situation of water utilization. The fifth chapter uses input-output method to calculate the total water consumption coefficient, and then measures foreign trade virtual water as explained variable, and the trade scale, trade structure and water intensity as explanatory variables to build the static measurement model, and then analyze the influence of these factors on the import and export of virtual water. At the same time, taking into account the existence of inertial effect of foreign trade of virtual water may, the paper builds the dynamic metering model to have a dynamic analysis. The seventh mainly puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations according to the empirical conclusion.The results show that:firstly, total water consumption coefficient of all industries’trade commodities showed a downward trend in China; secondly, China’s foreign trade virtual water have a rising trend in general; thirdly, the high water use sectors are concentrated in the agricultural and industrial departments, while potentially high water sector is mostly in the service industry. Fourth, according the empirical results, the trade scale and intensity of water is the main factor affecting the foreign trade of virtual water, the trade structure almost has no significance. From the dynamic perspective, virtual water import also has weak inertia effect.According to the research results, the author put forward the following suggestions:to speed up the transformation and upgrading of our foreign trade; to encourage imports to achieve trade balance; to speed up the technical innovation in order to improve the utilization of water resources; to optimize the industrial structure; to adjust water price; to adjust consumption and investment structure. |
