China's Export Specialization: Dynamics of Changes and Selection of Key Partners

China has been the world’s largest exporter for the last 10 years. Export has been the main driver of the country’s economic growth. However, the problems inside the country and the global financial crisis in 2007-2008 became the reason for changes in China’s growth model. International trade remains important for the PRC, but the government started to introduce serious changes in the trade structure. This paper explores the evolution of main trade theories and different approaches to export specialization phenomena, factors that effect firms’ and countries’ competitiveness are also examined. Next chapter analyzes changes in China’s trade policy and export structure, the current characteristics of the PRC’s foreign trade are provided. The final chapter introduces the results of regression and correlation between trade partners’ GDP and China’s exports, the significance of key partners and merchandize categories in export is measured by using RCA index. The conclusions are as follows. First, long-term export-led growth had caused multiple issues, which are currently being solved by the government. Moreover, developed countries are still on the list of China’s key trade partners, but the growth of Asian countries’ significance is remarkable. Lastly, despite the growth in export of high-technology goods, the role of manufactured goods remains.