Genuine performance of China's forest products trade: An evaluation from the perspective of global value chains

Abstract

This study evaluates the trade performance of China's forest products industry by decomposing its total export value added using the latest world input-output table for the period of 2000–2014 and a novel value-added accounting method. This method enables us to identify and isolate the trade of intermediate products and the double counting embedded in the existing statistics. Our results show that while the domestic value added accounted for more than 80% of the industry's total export value added, statistical deviations caused by including foreign value added and double counting could constitute as much as 15% of the total export value added. In addition, we find that China has narrowed its gap with the U.S. in terms of the bilateral export value added, while its capacity of value-added trade was superior to that of many developing economies. China can enhance its trade performance by targeting particular markets and adjusting its participation and position in the global value chains.