A Study on China's export commodity structure reform

Abstract

It has been widely acknowledged that, as an important stimulator of economic growth, foreign trade can enlarge a country’s national wealth, provide access to scarce resources and gain access to worldwide markets. But the increasingly bigger wealth gap between the North and the South arises questions hereby: what products should be produced and thereby exported by one country? What determines the export commodity composite? By probing into the trade-related theories, while searching proof and evidence from the rapid economic developments of the NIEs, especially by evaluating the structural changes of Chinese export commodity in a historical perspective, a fact is found in this thesis, which is in accordance with what Kuznets (1966) and Chenery and Syrquin (1975) posited—in a growing economy the decline of the agricultural sector has generally been accompanied by strong expansion of the manufacturing and/or services sector. By experiencing a dynamic process of changing comparative advantage into competitive advantage, a rapid growth in the exports of manufacturing products as well as a change in the structure of manufacture exports shall be realized. Hence a rational and efficient export structure might be formed