Chinese Version of Global Value Chain Development Report 2017 Released at CCG

The Center for China and Globalization held a releasing ceremony for an influential annual report on global value chain development in Chinese version, where former Minister of Commerce Chen Deming and other leading experts provided their insight about the role of global value chain development in the world economic growth.

The “Global Value Chain Development Report 2017: Measuring and Analyzing the Impact of GVCs on Economic Development” was originally co-published last year by the World Bank, the WTO, the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Research Center of Global Value Chains at China’s University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). In view of its valuable insights and constructive guidance, CCG joined UIBE and Social Science Academic Press to publish the Chinese version.

The report is mainly intended to help policymakers and public understand evolution of global value chain and its impact on economy development. It discusses the possibilities for developing countries to be more involved in and moving up along the value chain.  Another reason for the research on global value chain is that official trade statistics have led to many misperceptions about internatinal trade, while the analysis of added value can present different results. With extensive studies from new perspectives, this report provides new explanation about the influence of trade and technology advancement on economic growth, income and employment issues, which can complement the international trade and globalization studies and guide developing countries to further their participation in global value chain.

In his keynote speech, Chen Deming, currently the head of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, shared his perspectives about global value chain using economic theories and global production and trade practice, with a focus on China’s contribution to the global calue chain development since its WTO accession. He pointed out that China has been playing an active role in global economic governance and persistent advocate for multilateral trade system, by building the network of a high-quality free trade zones, launching Belt and Road initiative and contributing China’s plan and wisdom to G20 and BRICKS, which have all laid a solid foundation for reshaping global value chain development in a broader range.

However, Chen also identified some gap in the research on global value chain, including how to handle trade imbalance and unequal distribution of benefit, how to curb protectionism and populism, and how to leverage global value chain to construct a community of common destiny for all mankind.

Sun Zhenyu, the Chairman of China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and China’s first Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the WTO (from 2002 to 2010) proposed to further the study on multilateral trade system, including e-commerce and SMEs issues, which can provide new perspectives for global value chain research. He also called to put the study in the context of WHO’s current deadlock to help find solution.

Besides global value chain, Sun noted that additional attention is needed to look into how China can improve its business operation environment and control the risk of the “Belt and Road” initiative investment.

As CCG President Wang Huiyao pointed out, this report is published just in time when globalization process stands at a crossroad.