An Empirical Study on the application of the FTA of Shandong Province in China

중국 산동성의 FTA 활용현황에 관한 실증연구

According to the survey on the state of practical usage and present situation of FTAs, conducted among trade companies operating in Shandong province in 2014, more than 90% of companies are believed to be small and medium sized enterprises. Therefore this study tries to test what impact the awareness and utilization of an FTA have on its outcome among trade companies operating in Shandong province as well as partner countries and other trade companies. The research results are as follows. First, we found a positive correlation between 1) a company's global orientation (as measured in export density as a percentage of profit) and 2) its competitiveness (as measured in annual sales), and a company's degree of utilization of FTA provisions. Second, One of the findings is that the more aware of the (exporting) HS code, conventional tariffs and the process of issuing C/O the companies from Shandong province are the more they actually use (utilize) an FTA inpractice. Another interesting finding is that the more aware of the (exporting) HS code and conventional tariffs the enterprises are the higher is their practical usage level of an FTA. Third, however, at the time of this study's completion, FTA utilization was not yet positively correlated with statistically significant performance results. Therefore, to increase the utilization and performance of FTA, the China government have to make a efficient business models for each industry and support the small and mid-size businesses including Shandong province's SMEs.