Influence Of China’s Pilot Free Trade Zone Construction On The Comparative Advantage Of Manufacturing Export

The construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone is a new exploration to expand China’s opening.While improving the level of opening,it will have a profound impact on China’s export trade.As an important industry sector in China,the manufacturing industry’s foreign trade competitiveness has been declining in recent years,and has always faced the problem of "big but not strong".The institutional innovation of the Free Trade Pilot Zone involves the manufacturing sector,which has taken the lead in optimizing the foreign investment environment,promoting the flow of advanced elements such as technology,and further improving the innovation ability of enterprises.So can the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone improve the comparative advantage of manufacturing exports? Does it have any effect on the transformation of new export comparative advantages driven by high-tech in the manufacturing industry? Under this background,this paper studies the effect of the construction of the pilot free trade zone on the comparative advantage of regional manufacturing exports from the perspective of combining theory and demonstration.Based on the research results of domestic and foreign scholars,this paper first analyzes its impact effects and mechanism from a theoretical perspective.From the perspective of foreign investment,the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone will relax the conditions for introducing foreign investment,reduce the cost of foreign investment entering the Chinese market,give full play to the economic effect of foreign investment,and enhance the comparative advantage of exports;From the perspective of promoting technological innovation,the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone will provide policy support for high-tech R&D,optimize the innovation environment,and improve the productivity of the manufacturing industry,so as to promote the upgrading of export comparative advantages.Secondly,from a quantitative perspective,this paper uses the provincial panel data from 2009-2020 to calculate the comparative advantage value of manufacturing exports of 31 provinces in China using the RCA index calculation method,and finds that more than half of the manufacturing exports in China are at a comparative disadvantage,and there is still room for improvement.This paper builds an empirical model based on the Time-varying DID method,and analyzes the regression results.It is found that the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone has a significant positive effect on the comparative advantage of manufacturing exports.This conclusion is robust under the conditions of using the estimation methods such as raising the clustering criteria,variable lag for one period,and controlling other policy impacts.At the same time,this paper analyzes the differential impact of the Free Trade Pilot Zone on the comparative advantage of manufacturing exports from three perspectives: the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone has a more prominent role in promoting the comparative advantage of manufacturing exports in areas where capital and technology-intensive industries are concentrated,economic development is centered on manufacturing,and manufacturing export competitiveness is weak.Finally,through the regression of the original model of foreign investment and technological innovation through whether to construct the Free Trade Pilot Zone variable,the paper empirically tests that the two influence paths of introducing foreign investment and promoting technological innovation are established,indicating that the construction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone will play a role in the transformation of the manufacturing industry to realize the new export comparative advantage driven by high-tech.Based on the research conclusion,this paper puts forward some targeted suggestions on the policy direction of the Free Trade Pilot Zone and the ways to improve the export of manufacturing industry.All regions should strengthen the role of the Free Trade Pilot Zone in leading the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.In the process of building the Free Trade Pilot Zone,the level of opening should be improved,the conditions for foreign capital access should be relaxed,the financial investment and institutional support for scientific and technological innovation should be increased,and a better innovation environment should be created,so as to finally achieve the continuous improvement of the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.