The characteristics of contemporary international trade

After entering the 21st century, the world economic ties further strengthened, international trade to surpass the development of material production has increased rapidly to an unprecedented level, has become an important link and an important trend in the world economic ties.

The high growth rate of international trade is the result of scientific and technological progress, productivity improvement and deepening of the international division of labor, while it promotes international production, therefore, international trade and international production in both directions at a high rate of development. With the development of the times, the characteristics of international trade are also changing, showing the characteristics of globalization of business scope, electronic mode of operation, intellectualization of exchange products, white-hot conflict of interest, and universalization of government control.

Globalization of business scope

At present, the trend of economic globalization and regional economic integration is increasingly obvious, the two complement each other, promoting the further globalization of the scope of international trade operations.

At the same time, with the accelerated pace of economic globalization, the gradual elimination of trade barriers within the free trade zone, promoting the free flow of factors of production, the allocation and use of resources also become more reasonable, the economies of scale to further improve, especially for multinational companies in the global allocation of resources, expansion of business has created a broader favorable environmental space.

According to the “2000 World Investment Report” statistics, there are about 50,000 multinational companies in the world, its overseas branches amounted to more than 300,000, the cumulative cross-border direct investment totaled about 4 trillion U.S. dollars, of which 30% is controlled by the world’s largest 100 multinational companies, by these investments in the creation of goods sales, more than the world’s total exports.

Multinational corporations are the most active and influential force in contemporary international trade, they enable developed countries’ products to be produced and sold in host countries through OFDI, thus bypassing trade barriers and improving the competitiveness of their products, while also making developed countries’ products more smoothly enter and use host countries’ foreign trade channels.

Electronic mode of operation

E-commerce refers to a wide range of commercial trade activities around the world, in the open network environment of the Internet, based on the browser / server applications, buyers and sellers do not meet to carry out a variety of commercial activities, to achieve online shopping consumers, online transactions between merchants and online electronic payments and a variety of business activities, transactions, financial activities and related comprehensive service activities of a new type of business A new type of business operation model, which is emerging around the world.

According to the “2010 China E-Commerce Market Data Monitoring Report” officially released by China E-Commerce Research Center on January 18, 2011, the transaction volume of China’s e-commerce market reached 4.5 trillion in 2010, up 22% year-on-year.

As the inevitability of technological development in the network era, e-commerce is developing rapidly at an unprecedented speed, increasingly changing the traditional mode of social production, having an extremely profound impact on the adjustment of economic structure and becoming a new growth point for the world economy.

First of all, the operation of electronic commerce can significantly improve the efficiency of international trade transactions, buyers and sellers use electronic contracts, bills of lading, settlement documents, invoices, etc., with the network to achieve instantaneous delivery, and can efficiently carry out settlement and other related business.

Second, e-commerce can carry out business operations around the clock, buyers and sellers can conduct business negotiations at various times around the world, significantly improving the convenience of international business negotiations, thereby improving the success rate of the transaction.

Finally, the electronic operation can further reduce the tangible and intangible barriers in international trade, promote the further development of national trade, and promote the improvement of international trade business.

Knowledge-based exchange products

The advent of the knowledge-based economy has had a profound impact on the development of national trade, and international trade is increasingly showing the development trend of knowledge-based, specifically in two areas. First, the rapid development of high-tech products trade, the second is the increasing knowledge content of traditional goods, the former because of the rapid development of high-tech industries themselves, the latter is the result of high-tech transformation of traditional industries.

Data show that in recent years, the proportion of high-tech products in international trade is gradually rising trend, to 2010 to account for more than one-third of the national trade, is the same period of other manufacturing growth rate of three times. Luo Shuanglin in his “economic globalization under the characteristics of high-tech products trade” pointed out in an article: high-tech products trade in international competition has the obvious characteristics of increasing returns, international gradient transfer, high intra-industry trade index.

The development of high-tech industries has changed the traditional international trade structure, gradually transitioning the trade of labor-intensive products to the trade of high-tech products with electronic information products, biopharmaceuticals and genetic engineering.

Conflict of interest white-hot

Conflict of interest, trade friction and trade conflict in international trade under the conditions of globalization have emerged in large numbers, due to the imbalance of information control makes it difficult to balance the allocation of resources, therefore, the development of trade and trade friction between the world’s major trading powers and economies such as China, the European Union, the United States and Japan, and between China and other developing countries have emerged.

Li Chenggang, deputy director of the Department of Treaty and Law of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, has said in a speech that frequent trade frictions, the increasing importance of foreign countries to the security of China’s policy system, and the increasing uncertainty of the international trade environment are the three main features of the current international trade environment faced by China.

First, the conflict of interest between the state and the country. International trade is carried out under the influence of the “invisible hand”, which will have different effects on the trade welfare of different countries. In other words, in the modern free trade environment, the welfare of a country mainly depends on the success of the international trade industry, and the success or failure of the trade industry is related to the welfare of the whole country.

Second, the conflict of interest between enterprises and enterprises. Due to increased competition in the international market, foreign counterparts to suppress domestic competitors to provoke trade friction, industry domestic enterprises out of the country after the unconventional caused by trade friction, domestic enterprises to compete with each other for the international market caused by vicious competition, and international trade protectionism caused by trade friction.

Finally, the development of enterprises and resources, environmental capacity of the conflict. 20 century 80s onwards, the acceleration of global warming, the reduction of tropical rainforests and ozone layer depletion and other issues make international trade and resources, environmental conflict is becoming more and more obvious. The laissez-faire trade liberalization, on the other hand, will result in the over-exploitation of ecological resources and cause serious damage to the ecological environment. As Alexander Keith said, “There are two opposing trends in the relationship between international trade and environmental protection: on the one hand, the desire to control certain international trade for the sake of environmental protection, and on the other hand, the desire to remove all trade barriers for the sake of free trade.”

Generalization of government control

In the 1980s, the theory of strategic trade policy was created, which argues that under the market structure of economies of scale and imperfect competition, strategic trade policy measures such as tariffs and subsidies will help improve a country’s economic welfare through the appropriate use of tariffs, subsidies, etc. The theory internalizes the role of government and advocates government intervention in international trade with a positive attitude.

At present, the trade protection measures of developed countries are becoming more and more diversified. In addition to anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures, intellectual property rights, green barriers, technical barriers and labor standards are also frequently used, making developing countries, including China, very passive in international trade.

In order to cope with the unilateralism and trade confrontation of developed countries in trade, developing countries have also adopted corresponding trade policies in order to fight for the initiative in national trade.