Trade Liberalization And Facilitation Of 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road And Its Economic Effects

The trade liberalization and trade facilitation are at the core of Promoting the circulation of goods and building the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.Compared with developed countries,the trade liberalization and trade facilitation of these countries is at a lower level.Most of studies are mainly focused on the measurement of trade facilitation and lack of systematic research on the trade liberalization of these countries.This is the starting point for the study of this article.Firstly,this paper constructs the index system of trade liberalization using the index of the American Heritage Foundation,and introduces four indicators to construct an index system for trade facilitation.The results show that the level of trade facilitation and liberalization varies greatly across regions.This paper introduces an extended gravitational model to estimate the impact of trade liberalization and facilitation on the trade volume of countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.This paper selects panel data of 34 countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road from 2012 to 2016 and uses the gravitational model to empirically calculate the impact of trade facilitation on the export of Chinese products from the aspects of overall effect and sub-index effect.The results show the following conclusions.(1)The economic aggregates of trading partners and the trade agreements between trading partners and China have a positive impact on China's exports,while the geographical distance and per capita GDP are negative.(2)Trade facilitation has a significant role in promoting exports,while the positive impact of trade liberalization is small.(3)Among various indicators of trade facilitation,the degree of influence is: customs environment> port efficiency> e-commerce> regulatory environment.(4)To further estimate the value of trade growth potential for trade facilitation,it was found that most countries in South Asia and South Africa have huge potential for trade,while ASEAN,West Asia,North Africa,and East Africa are dominated by potential pioneering countriesFinally,the paper uses the GTAP model to design three scenarios to simulate the effects of trade liberalization and facilitation in countries along the line.The results show that:(1)From an overall perspective,improving the level of trade liberalization and facilitation along the route will generate positive incentives.It will have a negative impact on the rest of the world that does not belong to countries along the route.(2)From the perspective of regional effects,in terms of exports,East Africa has the most acute performance on zero tariffs;on the import side,South Africa is most sensitive to zero tariffs.After the level of trade facilitation is improved,the import of China and export trade with ASEAN has seen a large increase.(3)For China,achieving zero tariffs and improving trade facilitation along 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road have positive effects on China's GDP,welfare levels,and scale of import and export trade.(4)From the perspective of industry,countries along 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road will develop in the direction of their respective comparative advantages.The output of China's mineral resources has been substantially reduced,while the output of the textile industry,light industry,and public utilities have both increased.(5)From the simulation scenario,the simulation results under the two tariff reduction scenarios show a “gradual stepwise distribution”.