Analysis Of Embodied Energy In China’s Merchandises Balance Of Trade

Since reforming and opening up, China’s foreign trade has been expanding; trade balance hasbeen increasing. But the contradiction between the supply and demand of energy has beenaggravating. Using input-output method, the author calculates the import and export amounts ofembodied energy in China’s merchandises trade from1995to2008. The total of embodied energynet-export is947.72million tce, which is equivalent to32.52%of China’s total energyconsumption in2008. The largest net-exports of embodied energy sector is manufacture of clothing,leather, feather and related products; the largest net-import of embodied energy sector is chemicalindustry.The annual amount of embodied energy’s import and export accounts for asignificant proportion of total energy consumption. Especially since2000, the exportvolume of embodied energy accounts more than30%of the total energy consumption.The proportion of imports of embodied energy accounting for energy consumption isslightly less than the proportion of exports. Before2005, the proportion of net-exportaccounting for energy consumption is less than5%; after2005, it is bigger than7%.In the typical export departments, owing to the large net-export of merchandisetrade, the export volume of the embodied energy is more than the import volume.However, in order to decreasing the net-export of embodied energy, we can reducethe total energy intensity. In the typical import sectors, to some extent, embodiedenergy net-import could alleviate the deficit of China’s energy resource. But in someindustries, such as the industry of metal smelting and pressing, the embodied energytrade has changed from net-import to net-export at2004. This phenomenon is bad forour country to ease the situation of embodied energy net export.At the last of the paper, from the perspective of the total energy intensity, the proposal, energyefficiency should been improved in the entire chain of production, is proposed. Because of thedifference of the total energy intensity between different industry sectors, the industrial structure,especially the foreign trade structure, should been adjusted. And the export of cleaner and moreefficient products and the import of higher energy-consumption products should been encouraged.Enterprises should make full use of their roles in the industry, adjust their development model, andtake lower-energy growth model.