Research On Location Choice Of Export-oriented Processing Manufacturing Bases In Mainland China

The deepening of economic globalization and the progress in technology has greatly promoted the intro-product specialization and also contributed to the booming of export-oriented manufacturing base in China. In this process, the transnational corporations in developed countries obtain more benefits by putting different parts of value chain to the place of the lowest in total coat worldwide. China and other developing countries, at the same time, through participation in international specialization, gain capital, technology, market and the opportunities to create the potential value of remaining resources in absorption of FDI to develop manufacturing activities, all of which promotes the industrialization and the urbanization. Overall, in spite of the worries export-oriented manufacturing activities brought about increasing economic profile and environment protection in China, it is hard to deny that export-oriented manufacturing activities has done a lot to investment attraction, foreign exchange earnings, increasing job opportunities and upgrading of product structure. In the past three decades, the booming of export-oriented manufacturing activities has been one of the most important forces to promote the rapid and sustained growth in economy and foreign trade scale and export-oriented manufacturing bases have been the highlights in regional economic development. However, with the expansion in total economic scale and the maturity in the accumulation of capital and technology, transformation and upgrading have been the inherent requirements for the sustainable development of export-oriented manufacturing. In recent years, export-oriented manufacturing activities have also shown the tendency to transfer to the mid-west China. In this context, to explore the space distribution of export-oriented manufacturing activities will not only be great value for the central and western areas to respond to industries transferring, but also will be a guide for eastern areas to optimize and upgrade export-oriented manufacturing activities. This paper, based on the intro-product specialization theories, intends to construct a theoretical framework to analyze the location choice of export-oriented manufacturing bases and carry out empirical research by using the data of provinces and national economic and technological development zones.The paper consists of six parts. First, it mainly introduced the goal, contents and technical route of the research. Second, based on the analysis of intra-product specialization and manufacturing location choice, the literature review combed relevant research results. Third, the paper analyses the phenomenon of uneven distribution of the export-oriented processing manufacturing base. The fourth chapter of the paper is focus on the theory and empirical research about export-oriented processing manufacturing base's location choice. Fifth, based on the location rules of export-oriented processing manufacturing bases, this part explores the problem of bases'space shift. Last but not the least, the paper makes conclusion and policy recommendations about the research.Under the background of intra-product specialization, export-oriented manufacturing activities are transferring to the mainland of China. The location comprehensive advantage based on factor endowments advantages and transaction cost saving is the key point when export-oriented processing manufacturing base make choice. This paper did empirical research from three aspects respectively, such as provinces, industry parks and cities. In research of provinces, the paper use data of processing trade and thirteen indicators to construct econometric model. Those indicators include labor cost, land price, transportation cost, preferential policy, degree of openness, infrastructure and so on. From the quantitative analysis, we can conclude that labor cost, degree of openness and centralization economic situation of one region have important influence on location choice of bases while land price and preferential policy haven't. The research about industry parks and cities also confirmed this point. By this token, factor endowments advantages and transaction cost saving are very important to export-oriented processing manufacturing bases' healthy development. It is not wise for all districts to complete their privilege policy blindly. That will not only damage the regions'sustainable development ability, but also hard to absorb foreign investment effectively.The paper also discussed the space shift phenomenon of the export-oriented processing manufacturing base in recent years. With the changes of natural resources and infrastructure, factor endowment and transaction costs of all districts have changed a lot. And then, governments in different districts are necessary to adopt the positive policy. Specifically, those districts where undertake the processing manufacturing shift have to optimization regime environment, so that the transaction cost will be reduced. Besides, pollution and other negative effects must be avoided. At the same time, in order to accelerate regional development, other bases have to step up to industry upgrading.