Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- preface
- 1 Introduction: Foreign trade in China's economic development
- Part I Foreign trade reforms, economic efficiency, and trade patterns
- Part II Foreign trade, shortage, and inflation
- 4 Foreign trade and consumer goods imbalance: theory
- 5 Foreign trade and internal imbalance: empirical evidence
- 6 Conclusion: The prospect of foreign trade reforms
- Notes
- References
- Index
6 - Conclusion: The prospect of foreign trade reforms
from Part II - Foreign trade, shortage, and inflation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- preface
- 1 Introduction: Foreign trade in China's economic development
- Part I Foreign trade reforms, economic efficiency, and trade patterns
- Part II Foreign trade, shortage, and inflation
- 4 Foreign trade and consumer goods imbalance: theory
- 5 Foreign trade and internal imbalance: empirical evidence
- 6 Conclusion: The prospect of foreign trade reforms
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Under China's prereform foreign trade system, exports were determined by the level of planned surpluses and imports by the level of planned shortages. It was important that foreign trade was fully integrated into the national economic plan. A deficiency in raw material imports, for instance, would hamper domestic production and create a ripple of coordination problems. In contrast, under the postreform system, exports and imports are no longer determined by an elaborate coordination process. Specialized ministries, local governments, and enterprises, now sharing with the central government the power to engage in foreign trade, are to a certain extent allowed to make their own foreign trade decisions. Foreign trade is not, and does not have to be, rigidly planned, because enterprises and local governments are now faced with relatively flexible supplies of material inputs from domestic and foreign sources. The central government only has to draw up a rough foreign trade plan and deal with major exports and imports. Under this new economic system, foreign trade is much less destabilizing than it was under the prereform system, given that foreign trade is no longer strictly associated with massive and forced reallocation of resources from one sector to the other. The 1981–2 foreign trade slump and the 1984–6 foreign trade boom had relatively little impact on China in terms of national output.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- China's Foreign Trade ReformsImpact on Growth and Stability, pp. 176 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990