The Analysis To The Competitiveness Of China's Trade In Services Under The Backround Of Trade Liberalization

With the development of science and technology, the adjustment ofindustrial structure and the steady increase of world economy, international trade in services has grown rapidly and accounted for anever-increasing proportion of the total international trade since 1960s.After we rounded into the ninth decade of the last century, GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its following negotiationsbrought about new opportunities as well as great challenges forinternational trade in services in the new century. Developing servicetrade and promoting its competitiveness has gradually become the focusof the governments and scholars of various countries. Competitiveness oftrade in services involves its comparative advantage and its competitiveadvantage. Both two analyze the source and the development of trade inservices from their respective aspects. Besides, trade liberalization alsohas important influence on trade in services. How to integrate the abovethree aspects so as to explore trade in services from a new aspect is themain point of this article.China's trade in services has grown rapidly since China adopted the economic reform and open-door policies. The trade volume of export inservices has been increasing at the rate of 18% per annum from 1990 to2005. And its ranking of the world has risen from the twenty-sixth in1990 to the ninth in 2004. The export and import of trade in services isplaying more and more important roles in the development of domesticservice industry and national economy. Through the calculation of theindex of revealed comparative advantage, some Chinese scholars havedrawn the conclusion that the trade in services of our country has been ina comparatively disadvantageous position and is continually worseningsince 1990. However, this conclusion cannot explain the fact of the rapiddevelopment of China's trade in services and its steady rising place in theglobal service trade. This paper draws out that the suitable definition ofthe competitiveness of trade in services and the selection ofcorresponding indexes are the keys to judge the current condition ofChina's trade in services. This is also the problem to be solved in theempirical analysis of the article.This paper comprises four sections. Section 1 is Introduction. Itintroduces the background and the meaning of the research, methods anddefinitions, of which the competitiveness of trade service is divided intoexport capability and profit capability. Section 2 summarizes thetheoretical researches of the competitiveness of trade in services, introduces the applicability of the theory of comparative advantage and competitive advantage in service trade and the theory of tradeliberalization in services as well as the relevant research summary in ourcountry. The paper points out that the above definition of thecompetitiveness is the inner factor of the combination of comparativeadvantage and competitive advantage, and trade liberalization in servicesis the exterior force to push the two advantages to integration. In order topromote the competitiveness of trade in service, comparative advantageand competitive advantage should be integrated into a dynamiccomparative advantage under the promotion of trade liberalization.Section 3 analyses the international competitiveness of China's tradein services by using some indexes, and explores the factors, which limitthe development of China's trade in services. It concludes that China'strade in service has middle competitiveness in the world and thecompetitiveness is in the upward process. Though the comparativeadvantage is obvious, the competitive advantage is not. Through studyingthe export structure of trade in service, the paper draws out thoseindustries in which competitiveness is obvious are labor-intensive ones.They are in the factor-driven stage in the development of the competitiveadvantage.Section 4 introduces some measures that developed countries anddeveloping countries have adopted to develop their own service trade.And finally it puts forward some suggestions on promoting the competitiveness of China's trade in services.