RMB’s Exchange Rates’ Influence On Sino-US Commodity Trade Structure

Being the key controversy in Sino-US trade, RMB’s exchange rates are alwaysbeing considered as the main reason of the imbalance in Sino-US trade by manyscholars at home and abroad in these years. Although Sino-US commodity trade isstill keeping a long-term surplus, the condition has changed actually, at the same timewhen the world economic environment is changing. Capital-intensive and technology-intensive products begin to replace labor-intensive products to be the most importantrole in Sino-US trade. In this paper, Sino-US commodity structure are classified intoPrimary Products (PP), Resource Based Manufactures (RB), Low TechnologyManufactures (LT), Medium Technology Manufactures (MT) and High TechnologyManufactures (HT), on the base of the Standard International Trade Classification(SITC, revision3). Through the descriptive statistics, we find that LT’s (such asprocessing trade products) net export proportion reduces from0.74in1998to0.47in2011, HT’s net export proportion increases from0.11in1998to0.47in2011; PP’sand RB’s are in the-0.1~0.1range, which technology added values are low. So we cancome to the conclusion that Sino-US trade is structural imbalance. This paper alsoestimates the exchange rates’ flexibility of the products in the classification of thetechnology added value, basing on the local equilibrium model. We select TradeSpecialization Coefficient as an index to describe the changes of import and export ina co integration equation. The result testifies that HT’s coefficient is negative,meaning net export goes up with RMB’s real exchange rates’ increasing. The others’coefficients are positive, meaning net export goes down with RMB’s real exchangerates’ decreasing. PP’s and RB’s coefficients are the biggest which technical addedvalues and accounting for the proportion of net exports are the minimum. The resultshows that:(1) Sino-US trade surplus is structural;(2)RMB’s real exchange rates’increasing optimizes Sino-US trade commodity trade structure;(3) and it needs thefundamentals of the industrial structure of China to support.