Research On Competitiveness And Complementarity Of Manufacturing Between China Singapore Malaysia And Thailand

From the mid-twentieth century,regional economic integration has sprung up around the world,across the developed European and American countries until the backward African countries.The creation of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area(CAFTA)is a good opportunity for the rapid development of China's manufacturing trade.China's bilateral trade in goods with ASEAN amounted to more than US $ 36 billion in 2014,where Singapore,Malaysia and Thailand accounted for 60% of the total value.The manufacturing import and export volume of China,Singapore,Malaysia and Thailand accounted for more than 50% of the import and export of goods trade,which is the most important industry.Although Chinese manufacturing industry can occupy the middle or lower share dominated by developed contries owing to the comparative advantages of resources and labor,the manufacturing situation in Southeast Asian countries has changed greatly in recent years.China needs to improve the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry under the economic transition period and continue to expand its foreign trade with the ASEAN countries.Therefore,it is meaningful to study and analyze the competitiveness and complementarity in manufacturing industryBased on the analysis of the structural characteristics,industrial level,labor productivity and wage cost of manufacturing industry,this paper draws the conclusion that the low cost labor force of China's manufacturing industry is slightly inferior to that of the developed countries in Singapore.While these contries have small difference in high-tech labor force.This paper uses the relative comparative advantage index and trade similarity index to analyze the competitiveness in manufacturing industry.The results show that China's competitiveness in the whole manufacturing sector is weakened year by year,while Singapore,Malaysia and Thailand all show similar international competitiveness with China in machinery and equipment manufacturing.In particular,Malaysia and Thailand have made capital and technology-intensive industries as the economic pillar,which has formed a strong competition with China.In addition,this paper analyzes the complementarity of manufacturing industry through trade complementarity index and intra-industry trade index.The results show that China's chemical industry with Singapore shows a great deficit and inter-industry trade situation as well as the machinery and equipment manufacturing trade with Malaysia.While China and Thailand show good performance of Intra-industry trade in all manufacturing industries.This paper also puts forward some policy suggestions such as the industrial upgrading of manufacturing industry and the positive response to the strategy of enterprise going-abroad.