Analysis Of Trade Status And Trade Potential Between China And The Mekong River Basin Countries

The first Foreign Ministers' Meeting on "Lancang-Mekong Cooperation" was held in Jinghong,Yunnan on November 12,2015.At the meeting,China,Thailand,Cambodia,Laos,Myanmar and Vietnam discussed further strengthening cooperation among these countries,,reached a broad consensus,agreed to officially start Lancang-Mekong Cooperation process,announced the "Lancang-Mekong cooperation mechanism" was formally established.Under the pressure of the global economic downturn,the 6 countries of Lancang-Mekong sub-region,in recent years have maintained a good momentum of economic development,mutual trade dependence has also been rising.Compared with other regions around China,the Lancang-Mekong sub-region has a good economic cooperation base and market demand,regional risk is relatively small(such as territorial disputes,terrorist attacks,etc.),as well as enjoy good facilities for trade,financial intermediation and the favorable public opinion for regional cooperation.China has established a number of "early harvest" projects through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism and will be investing more financial and technical support to play an important role in this region,will offer more economic assistance and promote the rapid economic and social development of the Mekong River Basin.This paper is interested in the status of China's trade with the Mekong River Basin,the trade structure of countries,the competitiveness of service trade in countries,the state of China's FDI to the Mekong River basin,and the bilateral trade factors between China and the Mekong River.In order to use the implementation of the strategy of "the Belt and Road" and " Lancang-Mekong Cooperation" to find opportunity,the article will also analyze the development situation of China and the Mekong River Basin,reveal the development trend and the problems,and put forward some policy suggestions for the Lancang-Mekong economic cooperation to further develop the subregion.This article constructs a National Bilateral Trade Gravity Model between China and Mekong River Basin,by selecting the panel data from 2001 to 2015,introducing the economic scale(represented by GDP multiplied by GDP),Geographical distance,border as dummy variables,and by using Eviews 6.0 software to analyze the model,and the regression is used to eliminate the dummy variables with coefficients that are not significant.As the result shows,dummy variables coefficient is not significant,it may be because that the distance between China and Thailand,Cambodia is not large.The results of the second regression show that economies of scale and FDI have a positive effect on bilateral trade.The geographical distance reflects the transportation costs of trade inhibits bilateral trade.According to the gravitational model regression equation,the article predicts that the trade potential of China and the Mekong River Basin is of great potential.Finally,according to the results of empirical research,the author puts forward some suggestions on how to strengthen bilateral trade cooperation between China and the countries of Mekong River basin.