BEIJING -
Foreign-invested and privately owned enterprises
are playing an increasing role in China's imports
and exports, which are shifting from light
industrial products to high-technology products,
according to the latest statistics.
Last
week, China published the 2005 list of China's Top
200 Enterprises in Foreign Trade. The list is
compiled by two magazines, China Customs, the
official publication of the General Administration
of Customs, and Business Watch.
A high
percentage of the top 200 exporters for 2005 -
148, or 70% - are foreign-invested firms, an
increase of nearly half from 2001. Privately owned
enterprises took four seats, the first time any
private firms made the list.
Thirty-nine are state-owned enterprises, 52 fewer
than were listed in 2001. The remaining nine were
collectively owned firms.
Among the top
200 importing enterprises, 130 were foreign-funded
enterprises, four were private enterprises and 60
were state-owned enterprises, 28 less than were
listed in 2001. The remaining six were
collectively owned enterprises. (In China,
collective ownership is a kind of public
ownership.)
China Customs statistics also
show that in 2005, imports and exports by foreign
firms in China totaled US$831.7 billion,
accounting for 58.5% of the country's total
foreign trade, which was 7.7 percentage points
higher than in 2001.
Exports and imports
by privately owned enterprises have grown even
more tremendously. Last year, their exports and
imports totaled $167.4 billion, which was 18.2
times that in 2001. The average annual growth rate
reached 109.4%. In 2001, exports and imports by
privately owned firms only accounted for 1.7% of
China's total, which rose to 17.4% last year.
Based on the list and statistics, experts
point out that China has become increasingly
dependent on foreign-invested enterprises in its
foreign trade, and therefore must strengthen its
research and development of products with
independent intellectual-property rights to expand
non-foreign-owned firms' exports.
Speaking
at a forum in Beijing held last Friday and
Saturday after the release of the list, Zhang
Lichuan, director of the Comprehensive Statistical
Department of the General Administration of
Customs, attributed the situation to imported
brands and the lack of core technologies, as the
proportion of independent brands of Chinese
enterprises is low.
Zhang noted that after
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO),
foreign-funded and privately owned enterprises
have shown strong growth as compared with
state-owned and collective enterprises.
Zhang suggested China change the mode of
growth of foreign trade, supporting the export of
high-value-added products and services with
independent intellectual-property rights and
independent brands, and attracting multinationals
to shift their high technologies and
high-value-added processing and manufacturing
facilities to China.
Zhang said
self-employed industrial and commercial firms were
permitted to conduct foreign trade in July 2004.
Imports and exports by self-employed firms stood
at $4.2 million in 2004, which increased to $140
million in 2005. Zhang said he believed that
self-employed firms will edge into the top 200 in
the coming years.
On the same occasion,
Chai Haitao, head of the research institute in the
Department of Foreign Economic Cooperation of the
Ministry of Commerce, said, "The changes show
China is playing a major role in the restructuring
of [the] global industry chain as well as the
transfer of manufacturing."
Since China
joined the WTO in 2001, the product profile has
undergone a great change, said Chai. "Both imports
and exports of high- and new-technology products,
mainly in the information-technology industry, are
growing rapidly, with the export value amounting
to 30% of the country's total exports in 2005," he
said. Export and import products have been
upgraded rapidly, with exports of traditional
technology products, such as small-screen color
televisions, video-disc players, clocks and
watches, shrinking dramatically by more than 30%
in the past two years, while exports of high-tech
products, such as laptop computers, mobile phones,
and liquid-crystal-display items, have risen by up
to 260%.
China's foreign-trade growth was
mainly driven by light industrial products and
textiles in the 1980s and by traditional
electro-mechanical products in the 1990s.
The nature of China's foreign trade was
also changing, with processing trade volume
growing rapidly to 50% of the total trade volume
in 2005. (Processing trade refers to the practice
of shipping raw materials to China for processing,
after which the completed product is exported.)
Official figures show the country's processing
trade increased to $404.8 billion in 2003, 47.6%
of the total trade volume, up from $2.5 billion in
1981, just 5.7% of the total.
