The Impacts Of Regional Trade Agreements On China's Trade

Regional Trade Agreement(RTA)is one of the two major trends in globalization.Since the 1990s,RTA has continued to emerge in the world,Southern Common Market,which is entirely composed of developing countries;European Union is entirely composed of developed countries;North American Free Trade Area is a model of North-South cooperation.As of March 2018,there were 456 RTAs accumulatively notified to the WTO.Over 80%of them were generated in the last two decades.The signing of China's RTA began relatively late but developed rapidly.In April 2001,China signed the first regional trade agreement--the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement.After 17 years of development,China has signed 16 regional trade agreement with 26 countries.These 16 regional trade agreements are based on the periphery,radiating the "Belt and Road" and facing the world.There are also neighboring countries,countries along the "Belt and Road",and Latin American countries;both include developed and developing countries.What are the effects of signing RTA on China's trade?Do RTAs have different effects on different types of products?This is a problem this article studies.This article takes 26 countries that have signed RTA with China as the research object.First of all,we analyze the impacts of RTAs on import and export trade according to the trade growth rate,trade dependence index and the proportion of intraregional trade.Secondly,using the extended gravity model from the total amount and sub-products to study the impacts of RTAs on China's imports and exports.At last,we draw conclusions and made suggestions for future research and signature of RTAs.Preliminary analysis shows that China's trade with RTAs-contracting countries is higher than the world average level in 2017.Trade integration index of RTAs-contracting countries has mostly exceeded 1,indicating that China and these countries'links are relatively tight;and the trade integration index becomes greater after the entry into force of the RTAs.From the perspective of intraregional trade,no matter whether it is a multilateral trade agreement or a bilateral trade agreement,whether it is a small-scale developed country,a large-scale developed country or a developing country,the entry into force of RTA has significantly boosted the proportion of intraregional trade.Empirical analysis shows that RTAs have promoting effects no matter whether it is bilateral trade,exports or imports.From the view of sub-products,RTAs basically promote all kinds of products,but the effects of China's exports of low technology is higher than high-tech intensive products;While the effects on importing high-tech intensive products is greater than low-tech intensive products.This indicates that the China's technique needs to be improved.In addition,we also conclude that the trade flows between the two countries is directly proportional to GDP of the two countries,and is inversely proportional to distance and the level of per capita income between the two countries.The common language will reduce the difficulty of trade and the South-North cooperation will be even better.These provide a part of criteria of choosing RTAs-contracting countries in the future.