An inquiry into the effect of trade facilitation on China's digital product exports to countries along the "Belt and Road"

Abstract

We assess the trade facilitation level of 141 countries involved in the "Belt and Road" by constructing 4 primary indicators and 18 secondary indicators, and use the trade gravity model to explore its impact on China's digital product exports. The research results show that the overall level of trade facilitation is relatively low, and there is still plenty of room for improvement. The estimation results show that trade facilitation does improve the performance of China's digital exports, especially in terms of infrastructure construction and customs environment, while the impact of regulatory environment and finance & e-commerce on export performance is limited. The findings of this paper imply that promoting the continuous improvement in the level of trade facilitation is important for promoting China's digital product exports.