The Effects Of Structure Upgrade Of Manufacturing Industry On China’s Foreign Trade Competitiveness

As a world factory, China has experienced a rapid development of manufacturing industry and has become a veritable great manufacturing nation.But with the arrival of a new round technological revolution and industrial revolution, China adjusting to the new normal is expected to a shift from great manufacturing nation to powerful manufacturing nation. At present, the situation that China’s foreign trade faces is very serious. The traditional competitive advantages in manufacturing sector have been weakening and the new competitive advantages have not been established yet, which will lead China’s foreign trade to a critical transitional period. In order to transform economic development mode, enhance trade competitiveness and create new competitive advantages, the manufacturing sector should be highly concentrated on, for which is regarded as emphasis, difficulty and outlet.On the basis of research results of domestic and overseas scholars, this paper first analyzes the industrial structure of China’s manufacturing industry and then analyzes the export commodity structure of China’s manufactured goods. After that, RCA index is used to measure the foreign trade competitiveness of our manufactured goods. By studying the relationship between the manufacturing industrial structure and export commodity structure of manufactured goods during past two decades, we come to the conclusion that the industrial structure of manufacturing sector and the export commodity structure of manufactured goods are upgrading respectively, but not coordinately. The development of export commodity structure of manufactured goods falls behind the industrial structure of manufacturing sector and such the asymmetry of two structures exerts a negative influence on the promotion of trade competitiveness of China’s capital and technology-intensive products.From the constraints that structural problems have brought, we can learn that the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure is the key to enhance China’s foreign trade competitiveness level. Only in this way that our industrial structure and export commodity structure can upgrade simultaneously and develop coordinately and our foreign trade competitiveness can be enhanced continuously and rapidly. At last, some policy suggestions are made. First,establish dynamic comparative advantages and further optimize the industrial structure. Second, give full play to the guiding function of trade policy and further optimize the export commodity structure. Third, strengthen the coordination of industrial policy and trade policy and further enhance our trade competitiveness.In the next decade, China’s manufacturing industry will constantly face challenges as well as opportunities, but the latter outweigh the former. China is supposed to continue deepening reforms, focusing on innovations, promotingstructure optimizations, creating new advantages, seizing development chances and finally becomes a true manufacturing power.