The Study On The Impact Of African Countries' Trade Facilitation On The Trade Potential Of China And Africa

At the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation,China and Africa witnessed the signing of cooperation agreements on the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative,adopted an important outcome document for building a community of destiny between China and Africa,and launched more than 100 new initiatives to comprehensively deepen China-Africa cooperation with the implementation of the "Eight Major Initiatives" as the core.As a result,the "one belt and one way,initiative and China-Africa Economic and trade cooperation have entered a new stage of precise docking and high-quality development.Since the establishment of China-Africa Cooperation Forum,China-Africa economic and trade cooperation has been deepening.With the rapid development of China-Africa trade,problems such as trade imbalance and development instability can not be ignored.To achieve high-quality development of China-Africa trade in the future,we should find out many factors restricting sustainable development.With the gradual escalation of negotiation difficulty of tariff reduction,trade facilitation is playing an increasingly important role in deepening regional cooperation and promoting trade development.At the same time,the invisible market access barrier "trade inefficiency" has been widely concerned by many international organizations and governments.At present,African countries have reached a consensus to promote the process of trade facilitation,take the initiative to connect with international economic and trade rules,and adjust their own trade facilitation system with international prevailing norms.Therefore,it is urgent to accurately measure and evaluate the current situation of trade facilitation in African countries,quantify its level of trade facilitation,and measure its impact on China-Africa Trade and its trade potential.This will not only help African countries to formulate policies to promote trade facilitation,but also help China to formulate targeted measures to support African eountries,realize the optimal allocation of resources,and fturther promote the development of China-Africa trade.Specifically,what factors affect the trade between China and African countries?How efficient is trade?What factors restrict the realization of trade potential?This paper studies the above problems,constructs a comprehensive evaluation system of trade facilitation of African countries by using principal component analysis,calculates trade facilitation of African countries,investigates the impact of African trade facilitation on China-Africa trade through quantitative analysis,and further analyzes the trade efficiency and trade efficiency of each sub index of trade facilitation on China-Africa trade.The impact of potential has enriched and expanded the research on China-Africa Trade and trade facilitation.This paper mainly includes six chapters:The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the research background and significance,combs the relevant literature of trade facilitation,China-Africa Trade and trade potential,and points out the main content,research methods,innovation points and shortcomings of this paper.The second chapter is the related concepts and theoretical basis.Firstly,it expounds the meaning of trade facilitation and trade potential,defines the research object of this paper,and introduces the theory of comparative advantage,the theory of transaction cost,the theory of Customs Union and the theory of free trade area,which provides the theoretical basis for the later research.The third chapter is the current situation and characteristics of China-Africa trade.Firstly,it analyzes the trade scale between China and African countries from three aspects:total export,total import and trade balance.Secondly,it calculates and analyzes the trade structure according to the commonly used international trade classification standards.The fourth chapter is the measurement of trade facilitation level of African countries,using five first level indicators(including 32 second level indicators),using the principal component analysis method to measure the overall and single level of trade facilitation of 39 African countries in 2008-2016,and making a brief analysis of the measurement results.The fifth chapter is the empirical research.First of all,the impact of trade facilitation level in Africa on China-Africa trade is studied empirically by the trade gravity model,and the study finds that the improvement of the level of trade facilitation in African countries will significantly promote China-Africa trade,and further use the time-varying random frontier model to examine the impact of the sub-indicators of trade facilitation on the efficiency of China-Africa trade,and to measure and analyze the value of China-Africa trade potential.The study found that transport facilities and financial e-commerce in African countries are the main factors hindering the growth of China-Africa trade potential.The sixth chapter is the conclusion and policy suggestion,which is based on the empirical research to promote the high-quality development of China-Africa trade.This paper mainly has the following two innovations:First,the research object innovation.Compared with previous studies,this paper selects data between China and 39 African countries from 2008 to 2016 as a sample,examines the impact of trade facilitation in African countries on China-Africa trade and its trade potential,and provides policy reference for how to further expand China-Africa trade.Second,innovations in research methods.Using the main component analysis method,combined with the existing research and the characteristics of African countries to build a set of suitable for African countries to the level of evaluation of trade facilitation.Using the trade gravity model and the time-change random frontier gravity model respectively,this paper empirically studies the impact of trade facilitation on China-Africa trade,and measures the trade efficiency and trade potential according to the time-varying random frontier model,and constructs the trade non-efficiency model to investigate the impact of trade facilitation on the trade efficiency of China and African countries.