The Comparative Study Of Chinese International Competitiveness In ICT Industry

With the changes in China’s comparative advantage in manufacturing production factors and the international economic situation, China’s economic development has entered a "new era, new normal" period. The previous development model becomes incompatible with the needs of development of productivity. The economy of China needs to achieve more scientific balance among growth, structure and reform.Especially since the 2008 financial crisis, the world economic structure is in an adjustment period. Slow global economic growth, downward pressure on the domestic economy, as well as internal and external transformation make the upgrading road of Chinese industry more hard. The electronic information industry, as a knowledge,technology and capital-intensive industry, of strong base, high correlation, technical difficulties, high barriers to entry, is directly related to the overall level of a country or region’s manufacturing industry, and also an important indicator of the overall strength of the manufacturing sector of a country or region. To develop the electronic information industry not only can accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, change China’s industrial structure, improve employment, but also can help to resolve the macroeconomic problems of excess capital, insufficient domestic demand, weak market, overcapacity which are headache of China government. Enhancing the international competitiveness of the electronic information industry is significant to break the current impasse of the manufacturing industry, and to promote China’s economic transformation and upgrading, as well as to reach a new balance. Therefore, to explore the internal mechanism of the growth of electronic information industry international competitiveness, and to improve the policy of enhancing the international competitiveness of the information industry has become an urgent need to study and a problem to solve.Therefore, this article attempts to explore preliminary theoretical analysis and empirical research, to propose solutions and ways to solve the problem, as a reference for relevant sectors. First, the paper builds the industrial international competitiveness evaluation system in order to assess China’s electronic information industry international competitiveness. Secondly, try to grasp the internationally competitivestrength of China’s electronic information industry by international comparison. Third,the study analyzes the main electronic industrial policy of the information industry powerhouse, fully learns its valuable experience in order to promote China’s electronic information industry to enhance the international competitiveness. Finally, the study proposes appropriate policy recommendations.Research on the subject of this paper is divided into four parts: a theoretical framework and evaluation system, empirical analysis, experience, and means to improve the international competitiveness of the electronic information industry.Theoretical framework and evaluation system mainly includes the following aspects:1. The paper reviews theoretical perspectives and evaluation system of industrial competitiveness at home and abroad for a more comprehensive understanding, make a comparative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and draws useful part to enrich the theoretical framework and evaluation system of this article.The study mainly draws the value creation theory of Marx, Michael Porter’s diamond model and value chain theory and others measure and index of Balassa and so on.2. This paper proposes a new concept of international competitiveness of the industry, that industry competitiveness should cover value creation, value realization and value distribution of the three aspects of competitiveness, including the ability of the following aspects: production efficiency and production capacity; the ability to get continued profit, access to master of comparative advantage and the ability to form a competitive advantage; continuous innovation; the ability to occupy the international market share.3. Based on the above theoretical framework, this paper constructed the "three factor" evaluation system of value creation, value realization and value distribution.The main part of the value creation is a source of industrial competitiveness from the production point of view to examine industrial competitiveness. Value realization examines industrial competitiveness performance from the perspective of the main aspects of the exchange. Value distribution is the result of industrial competitiveness mainly focused on the country’s industry to achieve a profit and bargaining power.On the basis of the evaluation system and theoretical framework, empiricalresearch firstly analyses the development background, the history, current situation and issues of China’s electronic information industry, preliminary make a judgment that China is at the low-end of electronic information industry in the value chain and the international competitiveness needs to be improved. Secondly, the paper adopts laterally compared comprehensive evaluation and comparative analysis of the international competitiveness of China’s electronic information industry from the three aspects of the value creation, value realization and value distribution of the international competitiveness of the industry. Its main objective is to investigate the advantages of the international competitiveness of various countries at different stages of the electronic information industry, in order to exactly determine the specific situation of China’s electronic information industry. Taking into account to cover the complexity and breadth of products of the electronic information industry, the paper also selected computers,electronic components, communications equipment and radio and television manufacturing to do a comprehensive evaluation and horizontal comparison of these three sub-sectors. In addition, in order to reflect changes in the competitiveness of China’s electronic information industry, the paper also joined the research method of dynamic comparative analysis to determine trends and direction of the path of electronic information industry international competitiveness.By empirical data and empirical analysis, the thesis draws the following conclusions:1. China’s overall international competitiveness of the electronic information industry presents an enhanced situation, mainly due to value realization competitiveness. Although the value creation and distribution competitiveness are enhanced, the international competitiveness is still weak. In the Value Creation session,labor productivity and labor factor contribution of china rank low, while the contribution of capital element and the number of patent applications rank high. It indicates that Chinese human capital is relatively weak and knowledge and technology content is not high. Moreover, the development of China’s electronic information products manufacturing industry is driven mainly by investment in fixed assets, and China is in the stage of scale expansion and extensive growth, and gradually become a production base of developed countries. Last but not the least, technologicalinnovation makes a great leap in the amount, but the quality is unsatisfactory. Most of the patents are small following ones and are shelved because they fail to follow the market demand well and lack access to the market, which lead to the low transfer rate.In the Value realization session, China RCA Index, international market share and trade competitiveness index are high in the ranking. It indicated that China has become a large producer and a major exporter of electronic information products with strong export competitiveness and high international market share. This is mainly due to that China has seized the opportunity to undertake a large amount of industrial transfer when developed countries transfer the manufacturing sector of electronic information industry out. At present, China’s electronic information product manufacturing industry is foreign enterprises led and is in the market expansion phase of processing trade.In the Value distribution session, the exports relative price index and industrial added value ratio of China rank low. It indicates that China’s electronic information products are low-tech, low value-added and lack of international brands. In addition,the business model that is of homogeneity and low level, as well as vicious competition, of a large number of small and medium enterprises resulted in narrow business profit margins, and being at the low end of the value chain as a whole.2. From the sub-industry perspective, different industries have different characteristics. From the dynamic view, the contribution of the labor factor of the communications equipment and broadcast and television manufacturing industry is growing rapidly, while the capital contribution of which is growing slowly. It indicates that human capital has been greatly improved in recent years, and the industry has begun to enter the content-type development road with a strong competitive edge.Electronic components manufacturing industry lagged behind other industries in the value realization session. China is a net importer of electronic components, which mainly produces labor-intensive and low-end components and relies heavily on imports of high-end products. Key technologies are subject to foreign countries without comparative advantage. The export competitiveness of China’s electronic components industry is weaker than computers, communications equipment, and radio and television industry.The advantage of computer manufacturing industry is very prominent in valuerealization session. China is net exporter with strong competitiveness, which mainly produce micro computers, laptops and other products western technology of which is mature. China enjoys labor cost advantage in value creation session, while the competitiveness is weak in the value distribution session.Based on the theoretical framework and empirical analysis of the international competitiveness of China’s electronic information industry, the thesis carried out a detailed analysis of the factors affecting China’s electronic information industry international competitiveness. The thesis finds that the ability of independent innovation of China’s electronic information industry is still insufficient, with investment in human capital lagged behind the growth of its international competitiveness. This paper puts forward policy recommendations and countermeasures especially to the deal with the weaknesses embodied in the three sessions and from perspectives of macro system construction, industrial policy and the micro-enterprise countermeasures. In the value creation session, this paper believes that technological innovation should focus on quality and conversion, and China should vigorously develop human capital in order to improve the quality of labor productivity, technology patents and the contribution of the labor factor. In the value realization session, this paper believes that China should continue to play a size advantage, the government should create a favorable trade policy environment for China’s electronic information products "going abroad”, and further develop industrial clusters and enhance agglomeration effects in order to maintain the advantage in the value realization session. In the value distribution session, this paper believes that through a series of industrial policies China should promote the upgrading of industrial structure of electronic information to lift its position in the global production value chain, cultivate large multinational corporations to improve the organizational structure,strengthen brand building, and increase value-added part of products.