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In the first quarter of 2022, Vietnam's GDP was US $92.175 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.03%, higher than China's 4.8%. Vietnam has become one of the countries with the fastest economic growth in Asia and even the world. Vietnam's rapid economic growth is mainly due to the rapid development of Vietnam's processing and export trade. In the first quarter, Vietnam's total import and export of goods reached US $176.35 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.3%, of which exports reached US $88.58 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%.
Developing processing trade is the only way for almost all developing countries to realize industrialization. The basic feature of processing trade is that raw materials come from overseas, commodities are exported overseas, and processing costs are obtained by relying on local cheap labor. Processing trade is a typical intermediate trade in international trade, which is affected by the changes of international trade market. It is difficult for some developing countries to sustain changes in the international market due to processing; Some countries' processing trade has achieved rapid economic growth because they have mastered the development law of the international market.
In recent years, in order to develop its processing trade, Vietnam has signed a free trade agreement with Europe, reached a settlement with the United States and increased exports to the United States. Moreover, as an Asian country, Vietnam has strengthened its ties with Japan, South Korea and other countries, so that South Korean and Japanese enterprises can invest in Vietnam on a large scale, so that Vietnam, a country short of funds, can attract a large amount of Asian capital in a very short time. It can be said that Vietnam has become the country with the fastest growth of processing export trade in Asia, following China in the development of processing trade.
Some Chinese scholars believe that Vietnam may become a world factory in the near future. That makes sense. In terms of the production of consumer mobile terminal equipment, a large number of consumer mobile terminal equipment design enterprises such as Samsung in South Korea and apple in the United States have transferred their manufacturing plants to Vietnam. Vietnam has achieved rapid economic growth with the help of these large international consumer mobile terminal equipment enterprises.
If the processing enterprises consuming mobile terminal equipment are only regarded as large-scale product processing lines, it is likely to misunderstand the processing enterprises. The production of consumer mobile terminal equipment requires a large number of mold processing and a large number of utility model patents. If it does not have the processing and production capacity, it is very difficult to become a world processing plant. In fact, the important reason why Vietnam can process products for mobile terminal equipment enterprises in recent years is that they have obtained a large number of processed parts from China.
Many enterprises in China's Pearl River Delta, especially mold processing enterprises, have provided relevant technologies and supporting parts for Vietnamese factories. Some enterprises simply moved to Vietnam's industrial park to provide equipment and technical services for Vietnam's export processing lines. Without China's technical support and parts supply, it is impossible for Vietnam to realize the rapid development of processing industry.
It can be said that East Asia has formed its own special industrial chain. Samsung enterprises in South Korea provide design solutions. China provides a large number of parts and components of consumer mobile terminal equipment, and provides production and processing assembly line technical services for Vietnam. Vietnam processes and manufactures consumer mobile terminal equipment by providing land and cheap labor. This special industrial chain will not change in the short term.
In order to pursue higher added value, Vietnam has transferred traditional clothing, shoes and hats processing to South Asian countries, and Bangladesh and other countries undertake Vietnam's clothing, shoes and hats processing industry. This orderly transfer of processing industry shows that Vietnam is making every effort to improve its technological content and international competitiveness. On the other hand, it fully shows that China should consider the practical problems faced by different industrial development stages in the process of industrial transformation and upgrading.
First of all, China is a country with a large population. Although China's population growth has slowed down in recent years, China is still a country with a relative surplus of labor force. Every year, tens of millions of college graduates and rural surplus labor force need jobs. If a large number of processing enterprises are transferred to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, China's labor employment will be greatly reduced. Although some rural surplus labor force has found new jobs through the development of rural tourism industry in the construction of a new socialist countryside, as people can see, manufacturing and tourism are two completely different concepts.
Manufacturing can produce products and create wealth, while tourism belongs to the tertiary industry. If the social environment changes, such as a major epidemic, the tourism industry will suffer a major blow. Therefore, the development of industry, especially processing industry, is of great importance to developing countries. If the processing and manufacturing industry is transferred to Southeast Asian countries too quickly, China will lose a large number of jobs and China's economic growth will be seriously affected.
Secondly, the processing and manufacturing industry is at the lower end of the "smile curve" in the industrial chain. The profit of processing and manufacturing is relatively low, while the profit of product design and product sales is relatively high. The reason why some developed countries such as the United States and South Korea retain product design and product sales in their own countries and transfer processing enterprises to other countries is to pursue higher profits.
However, we should be fully aware that in the process of product processing, we can train skilled workers and accumulate intellectual property rights. The reason why many Chinese enterprises can provide supporting services for consumer mobile terminal equipment design and sales enterprises is that the founders of these enterprises have worked on the processing line for a long time. They have mastered relevant skills and accumulated intellectual property rights by relying on scientific and technological innovation. The world's largest consumer mobile terminal equipment processing enterprise is not only a product processing plant, but also a scientific and technological innovation base.
The research and development of new materials and processes by large processing and manufacturing enterprises has laid a technical foundation for the development of enterprises. Ignoring the role of processing industry, especially export processing industry, in a country's economic development may lead to scientific and technological innovation becoming a tree without roots and water without a source.
Vigorously developing export processing enterprises can train skilled workers to a certain extent, accumulate intellectual property rights, and lay a solid foundation for the country's economic transformation and product upgrading. Under no circumstances can we ignore the driving role of the processing industry in economic development, and under no circumstances can we think that the export processing industry has no future. Without sufficient technology accumulation, enterprises will gradually lose competitiveness in the process of export processing. Conversely, if we attach great importance to technological accumulation, rely on scientific and technological innovation and improve the level of processing technology, enterprises may find another way to form their own unique skills in product manufacturing and technological development.
Third, Vietnam has always followed China in economic reform. Vietnam's "reform and opening up" and China's "reform and opening up" have striking similarities. Although Vietnam has had some problems in the process of "reform and opening up" in recent years, the economy of southern cities is chaotic and corrupt. However, the central government of Vietnam has realized the seriousness of the problem and taken practical and effective measures to strengthen anti-corruption, so as to make Vietnam's economic development benefit the vast majority of Vietnamese people.
The purpose of building industrial parks and promoting the development of import and export trade in Vietnam is to realize economic transformation as soon as possible. If we only see the development speed of Vietnam's import and export trade, but do not see the overall changes of Vietnam's society, we may lack a clear estimate of Vietnam's future economic development. Vietnam is a country buried in economic development. In order to develop its economy, it has completely abandoned ideology. Vietnam's rapid reconciliation with the United States and other countries aims to expand the export market and strive for greater development space. Vietnam's foreign policy has opened up a broad space for Vietnam's economic development.
However, we should be fully aware that the higher the degree of dependence on foreign trade, the greater the international market risk we face. The reason why Vietnam is cautious on a series of major issues is that it is worried that the international environment will change and Vietnam's foreign exports will face political risks. This practice of weakening ideology is very important for the development of foreign trade. However, with the increasing volume of Vietnam's foreign trade and increasing dependence on foreign trade, Vietnam will inevitably be affected by geopolitics.
The reason why China is facing huge international market pressure is not because of China's publicity, but because China has become the world's second largest economy. China's development has objectively changed the pattern of world trade. The United States and European countries believe that China's rapid development affects their economy, so they try their best to curb China's development.
Vietnam may face the same dilemma. Nowadays, the United States, Japan, India, Australia and other countries support the development of Vietnam, and the European Union countries and the United Kingdom provide markets for Vietnam. However, when the scale of Vietnam's economy further expands and affects the market share of enterprises in relevant countries, these countries will take measures against Vietnam. Vietnam is in a period of rapid development. People don't know what difficulties Vietnam will face in the future.
China sincerely hopes that Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries will achieve stable and rapid economic growth and continuous improvement of people's lives in the process of economic integration and development. However, due to the traditional geopolitical relations and practical contradictions, China has to attach great importance to the impact of Vietnam's development on China. The reason is that Vietnam has become the touted object of western countries because they hope to use this rapidly developing country to curb China's development. It can be said that western countries strengthen economic cooperation with Vietnam, in addition to economic considerations, more from the perspective of geopolitical strategy, hoping that Vietnam and other countries will contain China.
Vietnam is very clear about this. Vietnam once adopted the strategy of "distant communication and close attack", kept a certain distance from China, and even harmed China's interests on some sensitive issues. China fully understands Vietnam's foreign policy and has repeatedly reminded Vietnam through diplomatic channels not to harm China's national interests. China is an important export market of Vietnam, and Vietnam exports a large number of agricultural products to China. If Vietnam takes China as an imaginary enemy and tries to unite with other countries to contain China, Vietnam will lose not only China, an important consumer market, but also, more importantly, Vietnam may lose the opportunity to continue its development.
Some Chinese scholars, starting from the processing trade, inspected Vietnam's economic growth and believed that one day Vietnam would be better than the blue. This sense of crisis is worth affirming. However, there is still a big gap between Vietnam's economic aggregate and China. The development of Vietnam's export processing enterprises has indeed brought a huge impact on enterprises in China's Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta. However, China is relying on scientific and technological innovation to accelerate the pace of economic transformation. On the basis of industrial economic development, China has vigorously developed the network economy and digital economy, and is speeding up the development of China's space economy.
China has transferred a large number of export processing enterprises to Vietnam's industrial parks, which shows that China's economic transformation has achieved certain results. However, as we have analyzed, if the employment problem and the stimulating effect of processing and manufacturing industry on a country's industrial economy are ignored in the process of economic development, China's economic transformation may be empty.
Therefore, on the one hand, China should vigorously develop network economy, digital economy and space economy. However, on the other hand, we should also attach great importance to the development of industrial manufacturing, especially processing and manufacturing industry, vigorously develop modern manufacturing industry and cultivate excellent skilled workers, so as to lay a solid foundation for the development of China's space economy and digital economy.
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