A Study On The Influence Of CAFTA Tariff Concession On The Quality Of China’s Imported Intermediate Goods From ASEAN

In the current era of anti globalization and trade protectionism,many countries reduce or eliminate trade barriers by establishing free trade zones(FTA)in order to better promote national development.The China ASEAN Free Trade Area(CAFTA)is a solid foundation for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(RCEP),and is the first and currently the largest free trade area with the most mature cooperation mechanism in China’s construction.The signing of the China ASEAN Tariff Reduction Agreement is of milestone significance in the process of China’s trade liberalization.For China,importing high-quality intermediate goods is an important means of achieving technological catch-up.Against the backdrop of China’s pursuit of stable economic growth,it is an inevitable trend for China’s economic development to shift from pursuing scale and speed to pursuing quality.Therefore,it is necessary to pay attention to the quality of intermediate goods imports when studying the tariff reduction policies between China and ASEAN.This thesis explores the impact of CAFTA tariff reduction on the quality of intermediate goods imported by China from ASEAN by collecting and cleaning key information from Chinese industrial enterprise data,Chinese customs data,and tariff data,based on existing literature and using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.Firstly,summarizing the relevant theoretical foundations and analyzing the basic principles of the impact of tariff reduction policies on the quality of imported intermediate goods based on scholars’ research perspectives;Secondly,the current situation of China ASEAN intermediate goods trade from 2002 to 2022 was analyzed from three aspects: the trade scale structure,quality level,and tariff level of China ASEAN intermediate goods imports.And introducing the method used in this thesis to calculate the tariff level and quality of intermediate goods imported by China from ASEAN;Finally,based on the double difference model,the research samples are divided into general trade enterprises(treatment group)and processing trade enterprises(control group),and the specific impact of CAFTA tariff concessions on the quality of China’s imports of intermediate goods from ASEAN is empirically studied to further test its robustness and conduct heterogeneity analysis;Finally,drawing relevant conclusions and putting forward relevant suggestions based on the research results.Research has found that the CAFTA tariff reduction policy has reduced import intermediate tariffs and promoted the upgrading of the quality of intermediate goods imported by China from ASEAN.Moreover,the impact of this policy on the quality improvement of intermediate goods imported by general trade enterprises is greater than that of processing trade enterprises,and the impact on the quality improvement of intermediate goods imported by foreign enterprises is greater than that of state-owned enterprises,The impact on improving the quality of intermediate goods imported by labor-intensive enterprises is greater than that of capital intensive enterprises.Based on the above conclusions,this thesis proposes the following policy recommendations:(1)Comply with the trend and reduce barriers to intermediate trade;(2)Promote the implementation of tariff preferential policies for general trade enterprises based on local conditions;(3)Make the most of everything and leverage the transfer effect advantages brought by imported high-quality intermediate products;(4)Adapt to the situation and encourage enterprises to innovate independently;(5)Advance in an orderly manner and continue to deepen the construction of free trade zones.