For more than 20 years, China's opening to the outside world has been mainly the strategy of "bringing in". Through the "imported" opening to the outside world, China's economy has gradually integrated with the world economy, effectively utilized a large amount of international capital and technology, made up for the huge gap between capital and technology in the process of industrialization, and accelerated the process of industrialization. Article 8 of the Resolution of the Central Committee on Several Issues Concerning the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economic System adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee proposes that we should continue to deepen the reform of the foreign-related economic system, comprehensively improve the level of opening up, enhance our ability to participate in international cooperation and competition, implement the "going out" strategy, and improve the service system for foreign investment. Give enterprises greater autonomy in overseas operation and management, improve the supervision mechanism of overseas investment enterprises, and promote the development of multinational companies in China. Implementing the "going out" strategy is an important decision made by the CPC Central Committee on the basis of a profound analysis of the international and domestic political and economic situation, which is related to the overall development of our country and is a new goal and measure of China's reform and opening up in the future.
First, the necessity of China's "going out" strategy.
The strategy of "going out" corresponds to the strategy of "bringing in" (introducing foreign capital, technology, management, goods and services, etc. ). The broad "going out" strategy includes all aspects of transnational operation of enterprises such as export of goods and services, export of labor services, international financing, international tourism and foreign investment. In a narrow sense, the "going out" strategy means that enterprises enter the international market through foreign direct investment and participate in international competition and cooperation, so as to improve their international competitiveness and promote the rapid, sustained and coordinated development of their own economy. The strategy of "going out" can be roughly divided into two levels: the first level is the level of commodity export, which refers to the export of goods, services, technology, management and other commodities and elements, mainly involving trade in goods, services, technology and engineering contracting; The second level is the level of capital export, which refers to foreign direct investment, mainly involving overseas investment in factories and shops. If an enterprise's "going out" strategy develops to the second level, especially after overseas investment reaches a certain scale (the enterprise has ownership in two or more countries), then the enterprise will become a multinational company. Since the reform and opening up, the success of the "bringing in" strategy has created conditions for us to implement the "going out" strategy today, which is the inevitable development of the "bringing in" strategy.
1. The strategy of "going out" is an important way to change the growth mode of foreign trade. As a big international trading country, China occupies an important position in the world economic structure. In 2005, China's total import and export trade reached142210.20 billion US dollars, of which 762 billion US dollars were exported and 66 billion US dollars were imported. China's trade scale has ranked third in the world, accounting for 6.5% of world trade. However, the sustainable development of China's foreign trade also faces the following problems. First, it is more difficult to further expand exports. The experience of big trading countries such as the United States, Japan and Germany also tells us that export trade will slow down after a period of rapid growth. Second, the scope of domestic industrial protection has narrowed. With the fulfillment of China's commitment to join the WTO, the domestic market must be further opened, trade barriers will be gradually eliminated, and protection measures will be unsustainable. Third, trade frictions have intensified. China has jumped from a small trading country to a world-famous trading power, which has impacted the original global trade pattern and touched the trade interests of other countries, resulting in more and more trade frictions. From China's accession to the WTO to the end of June 2006, 32 countries or regions launched 288 "anti-corruption and anti-insurance" investigations against China, involving a total amount of 765,438+billion US dollars. Fourth, China's terms of trade are deteriorating. According to the information provided by the Customs, among China's bulk export commodities, the growth rate of total exports of a large number of products is lower than that of total imports. Since 1993 established trade index statistics, China's export volume index has been higher than the export price index, while the import volume index is lower than the import price index, and the overall terms of trade tend to deteriorate.
2. The strategy of "going out" can avoid the restriction of origin. According to statistics, China has suffered the most trade frictions in the world for 1 1 years. The settlement of trade friction needs constant consultation and coordination. If no settlement can be reached through consultation and coordination, disputes can also be settled in accordance with the relevant provisions of the WTO. In addition, the "going out" strategy is also one of the important options to get rid of the predicament. Under the background of economic globalization, the ways for China enterprises to participate in international competition should also be diversified. For some products subject to quota restrictions, if China enterprises produce overseas, they can change the origin and bypass the quota restrictions. Going abroad and expanding the overseas market of export commodities can not only ensure the variety and quality of products, but also change the origin of products and avoid trade barriers. Such as Haier, TCL, Changhong, Konka and other powerful color TV enterprises have chosen the strategy of going global, exporting to Europe and the United States through overseas production bases, bypassing the restrictions on the origin of exports and slowing down the negative impact of the US dumping ruling.
3. The strategy of "going out" can realize the reasonable overall planning of two markets and two resources. From a global perspective, one of the secrets for developed countries to remain strong is that they have long implemented the "going out" strategy, led by transnational investment and trade activities of multinational companies, made maximum use of international and domestic markets and resources, and allocated resources on a global scale to obtain maximum benefits. Compared with developed countries and newly industrialized countries, China's "going out" strategy started late and lost some important development opportunities. 2 1 century, almost all large-scale trade and investment activities with high technology content and high added value are carried out by multinational companies as the main body or carrier. At present, whether in the secondary industry or the tertiary industry, the technological progress of China lags far behind that of developed countries. In addition, the international competition of strategic mineral resources is more urgent. Major multinational mining companies have basically controlled the world's proven mineral resources, while the choice of China mining companies is decreasing.
Only by adopting the strategy of "going out" can we make full use of both domestic and foreign markets and resources, make up for the shortage of domestic resources and markets, and ensure the sustainable development of the national economy; In order to promote China's economic structure optimization and strategic adjustment on a global scale; Only in this way can China enterprises participate in international economic cooperation and competition in a wider scope, in a wider field and at a higher level, and develop and grow in the fierce international market competition; Only in this way can the tremendous energy accumulated in China's economic development over the past 20 years be released, and China's comprehensive national strength and ability to participate in global competition be enhanced.
4. The strategy of "going out" can solve the balance of payments problem caused by the increasing trade surplus. At present, China's rising trade surplus has led to a sharp increase in foreign exchange reserves, loss and waste of domestic resources, new appreciation pressure on the RMB exchange rate, and increased trade friction between China and its relevant trading partners, especially the United States and Europe. Encouraging enterprises to "go global" can solve the balance of payments problem brought about by the increasing trade surplus.
At present, foreign direct investment (FDI) has become a new driving force for economic growth in countries all over the world, and China, as a developing country with a small FDI base, undoubtedly has a broader development space. China has become a big trading country, and the space for stimulating foreign trade growth by using traditional trade policies and measures is relatively limited. Therefore, accelerating foreign investment will be a good way to stimulate the sustained growth of China's foreign trade and an inevitable choice for China's foreign trade development.
Second, the feasibility of expanding China's foreign direct investment
The traditional international investment theory mainly focuses on developed countries, and holds that the competitive advantage of multinational companies mainly comes from the monopoly of developed countries' enterprises on the market, product differences, advanced production and management technologies, strong capital strength and other factors. According to these traditional theories, there is a view that China is a developing country in a transitional economy. China enterprises are small in overall scale, with few independent core intellectual property rights, low technical content of products, and the leading industry is still labor-intensive, so they do not have the strength to compete with large international multinational companies. Therefore, it is not appropriate to develop foreign direct investment at present, but should focus on domestic investment. However, in order to maintain the healthy and sustainable development of China's economy, China should make foreign direct investment.
Deng Ning, a famous British expert on transnational corporations, put forward the theory of investment development cycle in 1980s, and studied the relationship between direct investment flow and per capita GNP by empirical method. He believes that with the development of economy and the improvement of GNP per capita, a country's net foreign direct investment has a cyclical law, and the cycle is divided into four stages: the first stage is related to pre-industrialization, with almost no inflow and outflow of direct investment, less foreign investment, no foreign direct investment, and zero or near zero net investment. At this stage, the country's per capita gross national product is less than 400 dollars, belonging to the least developed countries. In the second stage, due to the development of some geographical advantages, such as infrastructure, foreign direct investment in these countries is increasing, which makes the inflow growth of direct investment stock exceed the growth of GDP, but the amount of foreign direct investment is very small, the absolute value of net foreign direct investment is negative, and the per capita GNP is between 400 US dollars and 1500 US dollars. At present, most countries are developing countries. In the third stage, the ownership advantage of domestic enterprises is getting bigger and bigger and more distinctive. In order to seek resources, markets and strategic assets, enterprises in these countries began to invest abroad. Because the absorbed foreign direct investment is decreasing, or because the growth rate of foreign direct investment is faster than that of foreign direct investment, the absolute value of net foreign direct investment is negative, and the per capita GNP of such countries is between 2000 US dollars and 4750 US dollars. As these countries become net foreign investors, they begin to enter the fourth stage. In the fourth stage, the importance of enterprise ownership advantage far exceeds the specific advantages of the home country. The growth of foreign direct investment is faster than the absorbed foreign direct investment, and the net foreign direct investment is positive, with an increasing trend, and the per capita GNP is above $4,750. 1988, Deng Ning put forward the fifth stage theory. At this stage, the absolute value of net foreign direct investment showed a decreasing trend, and then began to fluctuate around zero level. At the same time, both foreign direct investment and foreign direct investment are increasing. Compared with the first four stages, the fifth stage is greatly weakened by the stage of economic development and relies more on cross-investment between developed countries. At present, only a few developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan are in the fifth stage.
If we compare the investment development process in China with the above investment development cycle theory and divide the investment development stages by the change of total investment, it is roughly as follows: 1979 ~ 199 1 year experienced the first stage of the investment development cycle, and the scale of attracting foreign direct investment and foreign direct investment was very small. According to our data, roughly calculate 1979 ~. 1992 ~2004 is in the second stage of investment development cycle, with a large scale of foreign direct investment absorption and a certain scale of foreign direct investment, and the absolute value of net foreign direct investment is negative. According to the calculation, the average annual growth rate of China's foreign direct investment from 1992 to 2004 is about 46.38%, which shows that it has been significantly improved compared with the first stage. At present, China's per capita national income has exceeded $65,438+0,000. According to Deng Ning's investment development model, it is in the second stage, that is, foreign investment is greater than foreign direct investment. Obviously, from 1979 to 2004, the growth rate of foreign direct investment in China was much faster than that of foreign investment. From 65438 to 0995, the ratio of China's foreign direct investment to foreign capital absorption was not only far below the level of developed countries, but also below the average level of ASEAN countries. In the following years, China has been in the forefront of the world in attracting foreign investment, and in 2004 it became the second largest foreign investment country after the United States. At the same time, China's foreign investment grew slowly, which is consistent with Deng Ning's investment development theory and is a typical feature of the second stage of investment development.
Third, the policy thinking of implementing the "going out" strategy.
China has basically met the conditions for foreign direct investment, and some enterprises have the ability of international operation and financial strength, so they should develop foreign direct investment in the interaction between economic development and investment development. Developing foreign investment while introducing foreign capital can solve the bottleneck of foreign trade development on the level of ensuring China's sustained economic development and promote China's transformation from the second stage to the third stage of investment development.
1. Implement the GNP accounting system and realize the leap from GDP to GNP. Since 1985, China has established the national economic accounting system with the approval of the State Council, and officially adopted the gross domestic product to account for the national economic operation results. Since the reform and opening up 25 years ago, the transnational operation of enterprises in China has been developing continuously, but there is still a big gap with the level of absorbing foreign capital in China. Since 1993, China has been the first developing country to attract foreign direct investment for1year. Accordingly, starting from 1993, China's GDP is bigger than GNP every year, and the difference is getting bigger and bigger. Take 200 1 as an example. In that year, China's GDP was 9,593.3 billion yuan and GNP was 9,434.6 billion yuan, with a difference of158.7 billion yuan. That is to say, in 200 1 year, the added value of China's foreign investment and employment was more than that of China's foreign investment and labor export 1.58. The gap between GDP and GNP is getting bigger and bigger, which reflects the unbalanced development of "bringing in" and "going out" in China, and shows that our enterprises are far from grasping the opportunity of economic globalization.
We should pay more attention to GNP from the pure GDP and seek the coordinated development of "bringing in" and "going out", which is an important manifestation of our ability to participate in economic globalization. Commercial work should play a leading role in the national economy. While using foreign capital to stimulate economic growth, we should vigorously implement the "going out" strategy, which is a higher level of opening up. In short, we should gradually use GNP accounting system to observe the level of China's economic internationalization.
2. The strategy of "going out" should be diversified. The so-called diversification means that "going out" should attach importance to both developed and developing countries. From the experience of foreign countries and the practice of our country, the reason for implementing diversification strategy is firstly to follow the objective laws of economic globalization, and secondly to reduce excessive dependence on certain countries and diversify investment risks. At present, the diversification of China's overseas investment needs to be improved. From the perspective of regional flow, Hong Kong and Macao account for a large proportion, while developed countries in Europe and America, especially developing countries, are relatively few. To implement the diversified management policy, we should try our best to explore the markets of developed countries such as Europe and America, and make use of the advanced technology level of developed countries to invest and set up high-tech R&D centers or high-tech product development companies in developed countries. Some developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have low levels of economic development, vast markets, abundant resources and low labor costs. Our products and technologies are more suitable for these countries and regions. Therefore, there is great potential for investment and economic and technological cooperation, and efforts should be intensified to increase the proportion of developing countries.
3. We should determine the direction of "going out" according to the requirements conducive to China's industrial upgrading and long-term development. Strategic adjustment of economic structure and promotion of industrial upgrading are the only way to enhance China's international competitiveness. Therefore, we should keep a clear head and guide enterprises to "go global" according to the requirements conducive to industrial upgrading and long-term development. The shortage of petroleum, metallic and nonmetallic minerals, timber and other resources should be solved more through overseas investment. For the processing industry with overcapacity in China, we should take technology and equipment out, seek cooperation and development abroad, and share comparative benefits in the new round of international division of labor.
4. Encourage qualified enterprises of various ownership systems to "go global". Whether China can enter the third stage of investment development cycle as soon as possible depends on the competitive strength of domestic enterprises. Therefore, in the process of "going global", China enterprises can gradually learn from foreign advanced technology and management experience, accumulate more ownership advantages and internalization advantages, and improve the international competitiveness of China enterprises. Only in this way can China's foreign investment gradually increase until it exceeds the absorption of foreign investment and becomes a net country of foreign investment, so as to better integrate and allocate superior resources on a global scale, thus enhancing the economic strength and international competitiveness of the whole country. Encourage all kinds of advantageous enterprises to go abroad, boldly start businesses overseas, and strive for survival and development in international competition. By implementing the "going out" strategy, we can enhance the international competitiveness of enterprises and expand the economic development space of China. Some state-owned enterprises are large in scale, strong in strength, with capital and technological advantages, and should become the leading forces for "going out" to participate in international competition. Non-public enterprises have the characteristics of strong self-restraint, high market sensitivity and flexible management methods, so we should create conditions to encourage them to actively carry out overseas investment activities.
The government should create a good policy environment for "going out". In the process of "going out", enterprises have encountered some problems, a considerable part of which can not be solved by their own strength and need the necessary support from the government. The government should do everything possible to create a good external environment for enterprises under the premise of abiding by WTO rules. Strengthen the macro-control and planning guidance of overseas investment, establish the working mechanism of overseas investment and enterprises, improve the management system, at the same time establish the necessary policy incentive mechanism, increase the support of financial and fiscal policies, establish and improve the financial credit service system, strengthen the use of foreign exchange and exit-entry management, improve personnel training and information consulting services, and create conditions for enterprises to better "go global".