| China’s trade policy has evolved from "encouraging exports" to "actively increasing imports" in 2012,and then to a "dual domestic and international cycle" in the 14 th Five-Year Plan.China’s determination to expand imports has always been consistent,and it has not only the will but also the ability to do so.At the industry level,the manufacturing sector is a direct reflection of a country’s productivity level and is the mainstay of the national economy.China has been the world’s number one manufacturing country for more than ten years,but it is difficult to be internationally competitive by relying on cheap labour and excessive energy consumption as the main means of growth.In the context of China’s vigorous expansion of imports and the urgent need to transform and upgrade the manufacturing industry,this paper analyses the impact of import competition on the structural upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.This paper analyses the mechanism of the effect of import competition on the upgrading of manufacturing industry structure from three aspects: competition effect,imitation learning effect and capital accumulation effect.In the empirical part of this paper,the data of 29 manufacturing industries in China during 2000-2013 are selected for model construction to test the impact of import competition on the upgrading of manufacturing industry structure in China.The results of the study show that: import penetration has a significant positive impact on labour productivity in each manufacturing industry segment;import penetration has a positive impact on labour productivity in each manufacturing industry segment after the financial crisis compared with that before the 2008 financial crisis;import penetration has a more significant positive impact on labour productivity in labour-intensive industries compared with technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries.On the basis of the research results of this paper,the following suggestions are put forward: the introduction of competition through import trade promotes the development of China’s industrial restructuring;continued opening up to the outside world creates favourable conditions to promote the optimisation and upgrading of China’s industrial structure;manufacturing enterprises should face up to competition,actively respond to it,improve their technology level through capital accumulation,institutional innovation and personnel training,and promote the improvement of product competitiveness. |
