Since the reform and opening up, my country has made obvious achievements in exports, but the structural problem of low-end products has become prominent. Using a combination of theory and empirical methods, this paper analyzes the problems existing in the structure of my country's export commodities and the causes of their formation, namely The trade structure is low-end, heavily dependent on foreign investment, and the development paradox is highlighted. and put forward policy recommendations in this regard.

1 Problems with my country’s export commodity structure

1.1 The trade structure is low-end, with few high-tech products and low added value

(1) Made of The proportion of high-tech products among products is still growing at a low level.

As shown in Table 1, from 2000 to 2006, the proportion of my country's exports of high-tech products in the exports of industrial manufactured products increased from 14.1% to 30.6%, an increase of 16.5 percentage points. The proportion of high-tech products in the structure has steadily increased, and the development of high-tech industries has significantly increased its contribution to the improvement of the foreign trade commodity structure. However, compared with the global average level of 47% of exports of high-tech products in manufactured exports during the same period (56% in the United States), there is still a large gap. From a global perspective, the world trade volume (in terms of exports) in 2006 was US$10,338.6 billion, of which China's export volume was US$1.4219 trillion, accounting for 13.76% of the world's exports. However, according to the World Bank's 2007 According to the statistics of "World Development Indicators", in 2006, the market share of global high-tech product exports was US$1.4206 billion (Figure 1), the United States accounted for 37%, Europe 27%, Japan 18%, South Korea 4%, and China only 3% , it can be seen that among China’s high export share, there are very few exports of high-tech products. In addition, the export scope of my country's high-tech products is narrow, mainly concentrated in a few categories such as computers, communication equipment, and electronic products. The slow development of high-tech components in export products has seriously hindered the process of my country becoming a trade power.

(2) Manufactured product exports are still dominated by labor-intensive products with low added value.

From the perspective of intra-industry trade, my country’s export commodities are still trade between labor-intensive products and capital-technology-intensive products, which is a typical reflection based on the endowment of production factors. Inter-industry trade based on comparative advantages. This kind of inter-industry trade, which mainly exports labor-intensive products, has many adverse effects on the development of my country's foreign trade. Most areas in our country have only transformed labor-intensive production links in labor-intensive products into labor-intensive production links in capital- and technology-intensive products. The added value of products has not increased significantly. The status of overall export commodities in the international division of labor Lower, at the low end of the industry chain. As a result, product profit margins are low, and in the fierce competition in international trade, they are easily affected by changes in cost factors such as international exchange rates, making it difficult to create a stable export development environment. 1.2 Serious dependence on foreign capital and weak ability to resist risks

Although my country's foreign trade is developing rapidly, its export trade growth relies heavily on foreign-invested enterprises. In the past 10 years, the proportion of foreign-invested enterprises in China's foreign trade exports has continued to increase. However, due to the lack of intellectual property rights and most core technologies in our country, the large-scale exports of domestic foreign-invested enterprises have only brought to China the remuneration of workers plus some raw material costs, leaving behind environmental pollution. The actual trade benefits that China has received may be The profits are very limited. Foreign-invested enterprises have moved the processing and assembly links in the international industrial chain to China, making full use of China's abundant and cheap labor resources to seek greater profits by controlling the import of raw materials and export of finished products. Processing trade has the characteristics of "both ends are outside, large imports and large exports". Most of China's huge foreign trade is created by foreign-invested enterprises' processing trade. The rapid development of processing trade has simultaneously increased export and import dependence. It is worth mentioning that this over-reliance on foreign investment has reduced our country's own ability to resist risks. During the world economic crisis caused by U.S. subprime loans in the second half of 2008, many foreign investors were unable to protect themselves and withdrew capital and reduced production, which had a considerable impact on my country's real economy.

1.3 The paradox of development is highlighted: the contradiction between the upgrading and rationalization of the export structure is prominent

According to David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage and the Heckscher-Russian According to Lin's (H-O) factor endowment theory, a country should focus on producing goods with comparative advantages and factor endowment advantages, so that it can obtain the greatest trade benefits through international trade, achieve Pareto optimality among countries, and obtain overall Welfare maximization. The current situation in our country is that we are facing the emergence of a large number of urban labor forces and the transfer of surplus labor. The endowment of labor resources makes it seem that our country should vigorously develop labor-intensive industries, which can not only obtain comparative benefits, but also solve the severe employment problems in society. But on the other hand, although my country's export orientation of labor-intensive products can solve the employment problem of part of the labor force and the stable development of the entire social economy, it has become increasingly difficult to drive the optimization of the overall industrial structure and the improvement of the export commodity structure. In the long run, if a country wants to remain invincible in the international trade landscape, it must establish a dynamic comparative advantage, that is, a competitive advantage. According to the national competitive advantage theory of American economist Michael Porter, competitive advantage mainly depends on a country's innovation mechanism. Continuously created elements (i.e., propulsive elements) are more durable than static elements, and their advantages will It increases with the accumulation of knowledge. The competitive advantages of Japan, South Korea and other countries come from this constant creation of factor advantages. With the rapid development of science and technology and the emergence of new materials and new energy in large quantities, the relative importance of primary factors (natural resources, ordinary labor, etc.) will be further reduced, and the importance of dynamic competitive advantages will be further strengthened.

In order to reflect the country's macro-control ability on the structure of export products, it is necessary to use financial policies to appropriately adjust the industrial structure. For example, to encourage the export of a certain industrial product, the financial tools we can use include: export seller's credit, export buyer's credit, Establish various special research funds and improve security systems. Encourage the establishment and development of high-tech industries, provide financing convenience and preferential treatment to enterprises, increase the technological content of export commodities and the export of high-tech products, and improve the international competitiveness of China's export commodities.