China's Time And Space Pattern Of Direct Investment In Neighboring Countries And Its Influencing Factors

"The Belt and Road Initiative" is a constructively foreign strategy for our country in the era,even for the whole world,which is implemented by using the measurements of investment and trade as the main drivers.Of course,China’s neighboring countries are playing a major role in carrying out this strategy because of their unique geographical advantages.So,the neighboring countries have been the primary destinations of China’s outward foreign direct investment(COFDI).Due to the improvement of individual economic strength and under the globalization,the economic interdependent degree between China and its neighboring countries has been rising gradually,with the increasing amount of investment and trade.Recently,the COFDI has been making markedly achievements.For example,from 2003 to 2015,the COFDI flows not only increased from US ＄ 330 million to US ＄ 17.95 billion,but also its level and quality were continuing to improve.However,considering of the diverse economic,political,cultural and religious factors among China’ s neighboring countries,the investment environment is so complicated that the spatial patterns of COFDI also differ significantly.The previous studies are preferable to analyze the effects of the investment drivers,industries and its barriers being faced on the COFDI,rather than focus on the spatial distribution characteristics and its influence,however,the latter are the direct impacts of COFDI on the neighboring.countries.So,it is urgent and necessary to study the spatial patterns and factors of COFDI on China’s neighboring countries.From the spatial distribution of the 25 neighboring countries around China,this paper aims to analyze the temporal series and industrial spatial-distribution characteristics of COFDI on China’s neighboring countries,on the basis of the theories of foreign direct investment,geography and location about developed and developing countries,to demonstrate the temporal and spatial tendency of COFDI,and more importantly,to provide scientific reference for COFDI’s further investment and industrial adjustment.The sources of data in this thesis mainly come from:1)the official website database,including the United Nations(UNCTAD)database,the World Bank database,the United Nations Statistical Institute database,the Ministry of Commerce statistics;2)statistical yearbook,including the calendar year investment bulletin,China Statistical Yearbook;3)the world base map data coming mainly from the GADM database.Through the theory and literature analysis,this paper discusses the spatial distribution and agglomeration characteristics of COFDI in China’s neighboring countries by using geographical clustering index,coefficient of variation and spatial autocorrelation.The system GMM model is used to construct the dynamic panel model for COFDI on the China’s neighboring countries.The effects of the COFDI on temporal-spatial distribution characteristics were analyzed empirically.Based on mentioned above,the conclusions obtained are as follows:(1)There has a significant difference in COFDI on neighboring countries and regions.The amount of investment in ASEAN countries is the largest with the fastest increasing rate,compared to which of cumulative investment in South-Asia the least with relatively fast increasing rate and the potential future.And recently,the increasing rate of COFDI on East-Asia is being lowered,while the magnitude of COFDI on Mid-Asia is unsteady.As for the national level,COFDI is mainly concentrated in countries such as Russia,South Korea,Japan,Singapore,Pakistan,and Kazakhstan.Also,the industrial distribution of COFDI on China’s neighboring countries has its specific characteristic.Besides,the secondary industry in the manufacturing sector has become the focus of investment.Every neighboring country around China has more or less manufacturing multinational companies.In addition,the primary industry,such as agriculture,forestry,animal husbandry,fishery and mining industry,was with small proportion,but its developing trend was increasing year by year.With the economic development,COFDI gradually widen the field and the industries tend to diversify the distribution.(2)Through the geographical concentration index and coefficient of variation,it shows that spatial distribution of COFDI on China’s neighboring countries tends to be balance,but with a period of fluctuation.Using the spatial autocorrelation analysis,it is found that COFDI has shown some spatial dependency on the spatial distribution of the neighboring countries in some years,but the degree of global agglomeration is not obvious.There is a certain law of spatial autocorrelation in one local area.In the case of LL(low-low)type,it concentrated in Central Asia and South Asia while the HH(high-high)type area is concentrated in the ten countries of ASEAN with fewer amounts.The above mentioned shows that the surrounding;"hot zones" attracting COFDI have a weak effect on the attractiveness of neighboring countries,and the spatial heterogeneous area is "hot and cold" and the distribution is gradually balanced.(3)China has obvious market and resource seeking motivations for COFDI on China’s neighboring countries.The existing marketing size and natural resource endowments in China’s neighboring countries have a strong appeal to Chinese companies.At the same time,COFDI on China’s neighboring countries follows the principle of Geo-economic Relations:the stronger the complementary nature of geopolitical relations is,the more frequent the investment on both of them is.Important factors including a perfect infrastructure,a low technical level,a signed investment protection agreement,a comprehensive political system environment affect investment significantly.But at this stage Chinese enterprises investment destination option is no longer paying much attention to the host country’s wage level,exchange rate and other factors,which indicates that COFDI on China’s neighboring countries is in an increasingly diversified development period and the future also need to constantly try and explore.(4)"The Belt and Road Initiative" is long-term foreign strategy in China.Investment in good and sustainable development is a key link to mutual benefit and win-win for these countries.The future investment should pay attention to:a,increase the scale of investment under the premise of expanding the scope of investment.Improvement and optimizing of COFDI’s layout on neighboring countries can guide the increment in Central Asia and South Asia’s direct investment;b,find the advantages of China’s neighboring countries according to the their characteristics to determine the investment market and format a real sense of local conditions,which is beneficial to both China and its neighboring countries;c,establish the efficient information service system for COFDI on the China’s neighboring countries,providing comprehensive,high-quality information services for multinational companies and judging the investment environment in order to select the investment country on purpose.