In the context of globalization and transitional economies, both developed countries and an increasing number of developing nations have engaged in global competition. Following the financial crisis, major world powers have prioritized manufacturing upgrading. The United States introduced slogans such as “Revitalizing Manufacturing” and “Bringing Manufacturing Back to America,” while Germany launched industrial upgrading initiatives like the “High-Tech Strategy 2020” and “Industry 4.0.” The Chinese government has also actively encouraged and supported enterprise upgrading. In 2015, Premier Li Keqiang proposed the “Made in China 2025” strategic plan, aiming to transform China from a “manufacturing giant” into a “manufacturing powerhouse” by 2025.
Amid intensifying external competition, domestic factor costs for production in China—such as resources, land, energy, and labor—have continued to rise. The low-labor-cost advantage brought by China’s “demographic dividend” is gradually diminishing, while more developing countries are leveraging their comparative advantages in labor costs to develop their manufacturing sectors. Faced with these new internal and external challenges, export upgrading has once again become a core issue for the development of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Enhancing the added value and quality of export products, promoting China’s transition from a large trading nation to a strong trading nation, effectively addressing trade friction, and maintaining sustainable economic development are all crucial.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Key Project “Global-Local Interaction and Regional Industrial Restructuring” (No. 41731278), the Youth Project “Research on the Path and Mechanism of Chinese Enterprises’ Export Product Upgrading: A Perspective Based on Firm-Region Interaction” (No. 41801117), and the Ministry of Education’s Humanities and Social Sciences Project “Agglomeration Economies and Chinese Enterprises’ Export Product Upgrading: A Technological Relatedness Perspective” (No. 18YJC790240), this book adopts a dynamic product-level research perspective. It quantifies differences between products and within-product variations through measures of product technological complexity and product quality, thereby discussing the evolution and upgrading of China’s export products. The focus lies on the pathway choices for export upgrading and their influencing factors. As firms are the implementers of export product upgrading, this study seeks to understand regional disparities in China’s export upgrading by examining firms’ upgrading pathways and their post-upgrading survival outcomes.
