Research On The Impact Of China’s Import Of Intermediate Products On Industrial Structure Upgrading

With the deepening development of international vertical specialization，moreand more industrial productions are split into different processes and dispersed todifferent countries and regions. The rapid development of this process resulted in thetrade of intermediate products. Unlike the final products，intermediate products godirectly into production areas，and have a direct impact on a country’s industrialsystem，so the research of the relationship between the intermediate product importsand industrial structure is particularly important.This paper focuses on the intermediate product imports and the industrialstructure. The factors which affect industrial structure include vertical specialization，roundabout production and economies of scale，while the paths to upgrade industrialstructure include integration into the international production networks, optimizingthe allocation of resources and technology spillover effects.This paper sorts out the intermediate products in different industrial sectors ofSITC five digit code according to the BEC classification, and analyzes the presentsituation of China’s imports of intermediate goods and the industrial structure inChina, that:(1) vertical specialization of China’s industry has been improving,especially in high-tech industrial sector；(2) China’s industrial dependence onimported intermediate goods is rising；(3) China’s imports of intermediate goods hasgradually shifted to the demand of domestic market, and the promotion of productionvalue chain under processing trade mode；(4) the conversion of imports ofintermediate goods structure in different technical types of industry, reflecting thetechnological developments in China’s import contents；(5) the output valueproportion of China’s high-tech industrial sector upgrades faster, but there are alsosome drawbacks, like excessive dependence on international markets and affected alot by the external environment.Then，using panel data models，this paper analyzes the impact of intermediateimports on the industrial structure upgrading in China during the period1997to2011.The empirical results show that the imports of intermediate products have asignificant effect on the upgrading of China’s industrial structure and the promotioneffect enhances sequentially along the low-tech, middle high-tech, middle low-tech,high-tech industrial sectors. Furthermore, the empirical research of the high-tech industry found that the proportion of imported intermediate goods, the ratio of foreignenterprises output, the degree of the R&D intensity and the economies of scale have apositive impact on the production value proportion ascension of the high-techindustry.Finally, on the basis of the analyze, this paper put forward the correspondingpolicy recommendations.