Research On Opening Protection Of China's Retail Industry

Chinese government has cancelled the region, equity and quantitative restrictions on foreign investment in retailing, and almost realized the full liberalization of the retail industry since December 11,2004. China's retail industry is in the developing stage, whose international competitiveness is weak. There is a wide gap in financial strength, management experience, retailing technology and marketing between China's retailers and foreign retailers. The influx of foreign retailers has made great threat to domestic retail industry and influences the national economic security. With the development of economy, the retail industry plays a more and more important role in national economy, the healthy development of which is far-reaching. In completely open circumstances, China's government still needs to appropriately protect the retail industry. It is significant to promote the development of the retail industry and make it self-reliance under retailing internationalization through policy support.In this paper, a new concept has been put forward, which is "opening protection of the retail industry". It is based on the previous studies. Opening protection of the retail industry should take both opening and protection into account. It is appropriate protection with opening, competition and compliance with international rules. The ultimate goal is to improve the international competitiveness. Opening protection of China's retail industry mainly uses the flexible terms of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, industrial policy and a fair competitive market to carry out protection, according to the demands of retailing development under full liberalization.This paper has used comparative analysis, normative analysis and historical analysis to elaborate the opening protection of China's retail industry. Besides the introduction and the conclusion, it has five parts. Part one used SWOT method to analyze the status in quo of domestic retailers by finding out the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and threats for them. Part two overviewed the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the opening of China's retail industry. Introduce the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the specific requirements of GATS on retailing, our commitment of opening up the retail industry, China's opening status and international comparisons of retail opening comparatively. Part three elaborated the core thoughts of opening protection of retail industry from three aspects, which are core content, principles and goal. Then, analyze the necessity of China's opening protection on retailing from two aspects which are the important role of retailing in national economy and foreign retailers'potential threats to national economy security. Part four illustrated the experience of the opening protection on retailing in America, Japan and South Korea. Part five proposed countermeasures in the aspects of trade policy, industrial policy, competition policy, which are based on the international experience, domestic retailing status in quo and the flexibility terms of the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Among them, the trade policy measures are the main innovation of this paper. Through research on the flexible terms of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, China's retail industry can be protected by market access requirements, domestic regulation, government procurement policies, subsidies, and emergency safeguard measures.Full liberalization does not mean laissez-faire. China's government still has the necessity to carry out the opening protection of China's retail industry. This paper has practical significance to the healthy development of our retail industry under full liberalization. It provides a practical path to protect our retail industry.