Analysis of Free Trade Agreement Signing on the Determinants of Taiwan Manufacturing Exports

• Main Authors: Wen-Ya Chen, 陳玟雅
• Other Authors: 邱明斌
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/22616657012714594267

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 國家政策與公共事務研究所 === 105 === International trade is the lifeline of Taiwan’s economic growth. Signing a Free Trade Agreement(FTA) with other countries or join to the Regional Economic Integration has always been an important trade policy in Taiwan. Since 2011, Taiwan has signed the ECFA with mainland China, its largest trading partner, and the FTAs with Singapore and New Zealand respectively, resulting in substantial benefits in expanding Taiwan’s export markets. Moreover, the export of the manufacturing industry is still the highest among all industries. Thus, this study aimed to explore the factors influencing the export competitiveness of the manufacturing industry and the differences between the factors before and after signing the FTAs. After collecting and reviewing the related literature, proposed the influencing factors in the export competitiveness of the manufacturing industry were R&D, exchange rate, profit, and firm scale firstly, then performed industry analyses and applied Paired Sample t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis by the government data such as the Factory Operation Census data during 2007~2010 and 2012~2015 from the Department of Statistics, Ministry of economic Affairs et al., Conclusion and implications Form the research results as below. 1.To observe the export value from the perspective of industries, after the signing of the FTAs, the expert value of Manufacture of Electronic Parts and Components (#26) moved to the top. The expansion of the export market of this industry was large compared with other industries. The cause was probably the benefits from the ECFA signed between Taiwan and Mainland China. 2.There were differences in R&D and firm scale before and after the signing of the FTAs. The main reason could be that although the market expanded after the signing, the competition also got stronger. To maintain the short-term advantages of leading technology, Taiwanese companies had to invest more money in research and purchase of technology and manpower. This is consistent with the fact that with bigger-scale economy of a large-scale company, the company is more likely to spend its limited resources on a specific product, resulting in trading behaviors. 3.The positive relationships of the export value with R&D, profit, and firm scale in the next period were stronger, proving that companies of larger scales were more capable of making R&D, helping to improve the competitiveness of their products in the international market to increase their export value and earn more profits along the way. 4. R&D and firm scale would influence export value. And R&D was the most important factor. This means, after the export market was expanded, R&D helped to improve companies’ ability to make innovation in the manufacturing industry, so that their products would become more competitive in the international market. And the larger a company’s scale was, the more likely it would achieve its internal scale economy and further make R&D or its capability to purchase technology would get stronger, with more energy for innovation, leading to a beneficial virtuous circle.