Comparative Study on Financial Services Trade Competitiveness in the Belt and Road Countries — Taking the Banking Sector as an Example

Abstract

Based on the comprehensive evaluation results of entropy weight TOPSIS method, this paper conducted a comparative analysis on the financial services trade competitiveness in the Belt and Road Initiative countries, taking the banking sector as an example. The main findings are as follows: most Belt and Road Initiative countries lack competitiveness in financial services trade across borders and the gap is obvious when they are compared with Japan and other developed Western countries. China’s financial services trade competitiveness is ranked highly among the Belt and Road Initiative countries; the financial services trade competitiveness in East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe is stronger than that of other regions with South Asia being the weakest. Based on Diamond Model, this study analyzed the reasons for the gap between the Belt and Road Initiative countries and developed Western countries, and found that the gap between them is obvious in most aspects. Finally, countermeasures are proposed to improve China’s financial services trade competitiveness based on the analysis.