A Study On The Apparel Industry International Competitiveness In China Under The Global Value Chain

With the economic globalization, to measure the international competitiveness isno longer confined to the country, but to the industry. The apparel industry in China hasattracted a large number of industrial relocation, which passes through the outsourcedactivities into the global value chain. China has actively participated in the productiondivision of labor, and the degree of vertical decomposition has been deepened gradually,but it has not yet been determined that the growing trend of vertical specialization reallybrought apparel industry interests. As the world’s largest apparel producer and exporter,however, are mainly engaged in OEA or OEM, and Chinese apparel producers aremostly in low value added sectors. Apparel value chain is the typical buyer-drivenglobal value chain, which presents a capture of governance value chain. Faced with theinfluence of unfavorable factors in global economy recent years, Chinese apparelmanufacturers have met enormous production pressure. It has theoretical and practicalsignificance that how to clings to a higher added value link along the global value chain,improve the apparel industry’s international competitiveness and find effectivemeasures to break through the development bottleneck.The vertical disintegration and integration in Global Value Chain are twoimportant characters in the global economy today. According to GVC verticaldisintegration theory, in this paper, vertical specialization ratio(VSS)is calculated in themethod provided by Hummels(2001)as an assessment of the extent to which China’smanufacturing industry is vertically specialized on the basis of the input-output table ofChina.Generally,Chineseapparelindustry’sVSS showedanupwardtrend. At the sametime, RCA index and international market share index are used to describe the dynamicstudy. Then the regression analysis was made by the VSS index and each factor uponGVC which influences the apparel industry international competitiveness. Empiricalanalysis reveals that the enhancement of vertical specialization may improve theinternational competitiveness of apparel industry, but due to the characteristics of garment industry itself, the factors affected the apparel industry internationalcompetitiveness are different, such as R&D factors and labor factors.Based on the theories of the global value chain governance, designingquestionnaire surveys combined with the theory about the apparel industry. SPSS19.0is adopted in data analysis, and the methods involve: reliability analysis, descriptivestatistics (such as mean, frequency, variance, etc.), correlation analysis, and one-wayANOVA test. The criteria of apparel industry production may be included: quality, cost,design, delivery time, cooperation and so on. After analyzing the operating status,competitiveness situation, and the strategy that improved competitiveness, then putforward the practical plot.Finally on the basis of empirical analysis and questionnaire surveys and analysis,this paper raises the conclusion and policy suggestions.