A Study On Characteristics And Influencing Factors Of China's Imports

Since China joined in the WTO, China's foreign trade has a rapid growth, from$266.1billion in2001to nearly$4.16trillion in2013. Meanwhile, Trade surplus alsohas a constantly expanding unceasingly, it hits a record$298.13billion in2008, with$259.75billion in2013, is10.2times that of2001.The imbalance in internationalpayments has become a prominent problem in the current Chinese economic operation.Excessive trade surplus caused many trade frictions in recent years, and made China'sforeign trade environment to worsen, increased the pressure on the appreciation of theRMB. Expand imports can solve the problem of multilateral and bilateral trade balance,as well as balance the international payments, optimizes high foreign exchangereserves. Proper expand import is a very natural and correct policy. At present,Chinese import also has great potentiality, and the rapid growth of the domesticeconomy is expanding the demand of imports. Therefore, studying the presentsituation, characteristics and influence factors of China import trade development is ofgreat significance to establish reasonable import development mode, to achieve thetrade structure balance, and to promote the economic development.The paper is mainly divided into eight parts; the specific contents are as follows:The first part is introduction. This part mainly introduces the research backgroundand research significance of this paper, and reviews the research status at home andabroad, puts forword the main content of the research and the main problems thatdrafted to solved, and finally put forward the innovation and deficiencies.In the second part is to introduce the historical development and present situationof import trade in china. This part is mainly to analyze the history and current situationof the import trade development in China, which covering mainly includes: totalimports and growth rate, import dependency, goods structure of the imports, mainstructure of imports, market structure of imports, Mode structure of imports, etc.,therefore, we have a more clear understanding on the development status of China'simported from macro perspective.In the third part is to study the China import policy. Firstly, this part discusses theevolution of import trade policy in our country mainly from tariff and non-tariff, andmade a brief evaluation on different periods of import trade policies. Overall, China's current import policy is the policy system of production and export-oriented, that is,import services for export. Imposed lower tariffs on raw materials and intermediateproducts, and imposed higher tariffs on manufactured goods, at the same time,imposed higher consumption tax on some consumer goods. Although the policyencourage to import advanced technology and core components, some products exportare restricted by Western, so the proportion of imports and the effects of policies arelimited. Then, this paper points out the main existing problems of import policy: thelack of strategic and forward-looking, disjointed with industrial policy and exportpolicy and the high import link tax. Therefore, China should improve policy fromtariffs, non-tariff barriers, exchange rate system, and policy coordination.The fourth part is to analysis the characteristics of China's import trade. This partfocus on the developing status of China imports trade, which demonstrates that ourcountry has long-standing static "import substitution", and points out the existingproblems in the process of "import substitution"The fifth part is to research the influence of increase imports. Firstly, the paperanalyses the necessity of adjusting China current imports, then analysis the influenceof increase imports. Expanding the scale of the imported properly plays an importantrole to promote the international image, improve the efficiency of resource allocation,promote technological progress, improve consumers' welfare, ease trade friction,establish and improve the market competition mechanism, ensure domestic productionand economic security. At the same time, imports may also has harm aspect to thenational economy, including the impact of domestic infant industries, relying onforeign products and technology, deterioration of trade terms, and the welfare loss, etc.Take imported intermediate goods in a account, for the parts in the short term, theimports of parts and components will produce technology spillover effect, causes thetechnical content of China complete sets of machinery and equipment exports can beimproved, but in the long run, China needs to get rid of the excessive dependence onimported parts and components, and gradually improve the independent innovationability of local parts enterprise; for complete sets of equipment, in the short term,import of complete sets of equipment can promote the upgrading of consumer goodsexports, but in the long run, exacerbated by local equipment enterprises in China and abroad. That is unfavorable to the sustainable development of China's equipmentmanufacturing industry.The sixth part is to research the influence factors of China import trade based onthe panel data analysis of gravity model. The first part makes a qualitative analysis onfactors influencing import trade, then makes econometric analysis on the factorsaffecting import trade through the establishment of panel data model based on tradegravity model. The results showed that: the influence factors on the development ofChina's import trade are the development of export trade, bilateral trade cost, foreigndirect investment, country's economic development and bilateral geographical distance,the effect of the impact of consumer spending on imports is not obvious. Reduction oftrade barriers promotes Chinese imports after our country joins in WTO, and theoutbreak of the financial crisis has certain negative effects on China's imports.However, these two factors in the model of the studied time intervals, does not havethe persistent effect.The seventh part is to put forward the suggestion to the China import tradedevelopment. Based on the above theoretical and empirical analysis of the results, thepaper puts forward the suggestion to the China import trade development according tothe actual situation of China's import trade.The eighth part is to carry on the full summary of the paper and the furtherresearch direction is discussed.