Analysis Of The Influence Of FTA Rules Of Origin On China’s Manufacturing Export Technology Complexity

As a strategic trade tool,FTA rules of origin have prevented trade diversion and promoted regional economic development while also creating certain obstacles to intraregional trade liberalization.With the increase in the number of China’s FTAs and the deepening of regional cooperation,it has become particularly important to enrich the functions of rules of origin so that they can better serve industrial development and regional division of labor.Since joining the WTO in 2001,China has been actively engaged in international trade and labour-sharing in the global value chain,and export trade in manufacturing has developed rapidly,but export competitiveness is still very low compared to developed countries.As the basis for promoting the construction of a strong country,the manufacturing industry’s export competitiveness has a profound impact on promoting industrial structure upgrading and high-quality economic development,so it is crucial to improve the export technology level while the export scale continues to expand.In-depth analysis of the rules of origin of FTAs that China has concluded and their impact on China’s manufacturing industry is of great significance.This paper consists of six chapters,which can be summarized into five parts.In the first part,introduce the background and significance of the topic,and the literature is reviewed to form a certain knowledge of the current status of research on rules of origin and export technology complexity,identify the research ideas and methods,and summarize the innovation points and shortcomings.The second part uses relevant trade theories to analyze the inner logic and influence path of FTA rules of origin affecting manufacturing export technology.The third part is the index measurement of China’s FTA rules of origin and manufacturing export technology complexity,i.e.,the second and third chapters introduce the measurement methods of rules of origin restriction index and export technology complexity,respectively,and provide a basic description of the measurement results and development status.The fourth part is an empirical study,which constructs a two-way fixed-effects model with China’s FTA rules of origin restriction index as the core explanatory variable and bilateral export technical complexity of manufacturing industry as the explanatory variable,explores the impact of FTA rules of origin on the technical complexity of China’s manufacturing exports using benchmark regression and robustness test,and conducts heterogeneity analysis based on industry and country differences,and finally tests the impact channel.The empirical results show that China’s FTA rules of origin have a U-shaped non-linear relationship with the technical complexity of bilateral manufacturing exports,and only when the rules of origin restriction index exceeds a critical value can it be beneficial to upgrade the technical complexity of manufacturing exports.The results of industry heterogeneity show that rules of origin have a positive impact on the increase of export complexity in medium-and high-tech industries,while there is a certain inhibitory effect on low-tech industries.In terms of country heterogeneity,the rules of origin of FTAs signed with developed and emerging economies are more conducive to the upgrading of the technological content of China’s manufacturing exports.In terms of impact mechanism,it is verified that rules of origin can promote the technological sophistication of manufacturing exports by facilitating the synergistic development of manufacturing industries and increasing the export intensity.In the last part of this paper,the research findings are summarized and relevant countermeasures and suggestions are proposed.