Search results

Begins by considering trends in the incidence of rural poverty in China, comparing China and India. Although the incidence of rural poverty in China declined generally, such poverty is still a matter for concern, especially now that China has joined the WTO. There is concern about the possible impact of China's WTO entry on its rural poverty and its ability to adopt policies to address it. Recent international studies of such poverty in China by bodies such as the World Bank, OECD, ADB and IFPRI are outlined and reviewed critically with these economic issues in mind. The most recent study by Anderson and others suggests that China's agriculture will be forced to undertake more structural adjustment than forecast in earlier studies. The Chinese policies to deal with rural poverty will need to give increasing attention to structural adjustment support and migration from rural areas in the future. The WTO does not count such measures as a form of economic protection. In fact, a large number of measures to provide financial support to farmers, including support to poor farmers, are WTO‐exempt. As discussed these include “green box” measure, certain development measures in developing countries, and “ blue box” measures. In addition, under the de minimis principle, China can provide economic protection on average of 8.5 per cent of the value of an agricultural product.

The transition from a command economy to a market‐based economy has been remarkably successful in China. After 15 years of negotiations, China finally joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. Because of trade and investment liberalization under the WTO, there will be greater competition between Chinese and foreign firms, both inside China and outside China. While there is a great deal of economic literature on China's entry to the WTO, there has been no research on the global marketing impact and implications of China's membership of the WTO. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. The objective of this study is to examine the general impact of China's entry to the WTO and to assess the global marketing implications of specific trade‐related policy issues within the WTO framework for China. Eleven specific WTO policy issues are examined and several global marketing propositions offered in terms of the WTO's impact on and implications for China.

Based on the commitments made when it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China began to allow the establishment of foreign‐invested travel agencies. During this transition period, China promulgated travel service‐related policies and paid a great deal of attention to this specific business market. This paper aims to analyze the said tourism policies and provide suggestions to foreign investors for their future business activities in this promising market.

The study uses both primary and secondary data to specify China's policies on foreign‐invested travel agencies upon its accession to the WTO and discuss foreign investors' entry modes and operating strategies for joining the market. Hall's model is employed to examine the policy‐making process, including policy demands, policy decisions, policy outputs, and policy impacts.

Some foreign investment‐related tourism policies were implemented ahead of the schedule to which China committed upon its entry to the WTO. The tight nature of the policies implemented meant that only 25 foreign‐invested agencies had survived in China by August 2007. Industry professionals recruited for this study commented that the nature and pattern of FDI in this market has been successfully framed by the policies adopted.

The entry modes that foreign investors in China's travel service market should adopt and the detailed operating strategies they should use are discussed.

The paper can be seen as a successful and enlightening attempt to pave the way for future researchers to engage in further discussions about FDI in tourism in a political environment, particularly in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the effects of WTO accession on the economic growth of China, and the paths of those effects.

This article carries out a theoretical and empirical analysis on the effect on China's economic growth from WTO accession. First is about the theoretical analysis of the paths of those effects which WTO accession has on China's economic growth. Next is to make empirical test about the effects through dummy variable regression and cross variable analysis.

WTO accession has a remarkable and a positive effect on China's economic growth through the following specific paths, i.e. foreign trade path, economic system reform path and FDI path. But so far entry into WTO has not positively influenced China's economic growth through technological innovation.

Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis, this article puts forward relative policies and suggestions on what China should do in the future.

This study aims to explore the impact of Vietnamese firms' expectations of opportunities provided by the World Trade Organization (WTO) – expected WTO opportunities – on their marketing and innovativeness capabilities, and subsequently, on business performance.

Using a sample of 323 Vietnamese firms in Ho Chi Minh City, a model incorporating expected WTO opportunities, marketing and innovativeness capabilities, and business performance by means of structural equation modeling was tested.

It was found that expected WTO opportunities had positive impacts on both marketing and innovativeness capabilities. Further, marketing and innovativeness capabilities underlie business performance of Vietnamese firms.

A key limitation of this study is the examination of the impact of expected WTO on only two firm capabilities: marketing and innovativeness. There might be several other firm capabilities that may be affected by expected WTO such as entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation.

The results of this study suggest that firms should be prepared to take advantage of the WTO: to evaluate its opportunities, as well as threats, in order to design and implement appropriate strategies for doing business in a new and challenging environment.

This is the first study of this type on Vietnam's entry into the WTO as an important event for Vietnamese firms. The findings of this study suggest expected WTO opportunities play an important role in strengthening marketing and innovativeness capabilities, and subsequently, on business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate the location determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and examine the impact of WTO accession.

Based on an 11‐year panel dataset on FDI and urban characteristics across Chinese cities, the paper employs a random effect panel data model to study the impact of WTO accession on FDI.

The estimation results provide supportive evidence on WTO accession effects on FDI location. The importance of agglomeration economies increases, while the influence of market size and government preferential policies has decreased after WTO accession. Cheap labor plays an increasingly important role, but labor quality and roadway transport conditions lose their significance.

This study contributes to the existing literature by identifying the WTO accession effects on FDI location choices in a transitional economy.

The UK continues to be one of Europe’s leading investors in China. Many companies have chosen the international joint venture (IJV) option as their market entry method. However, in 2000, the growth of wholly foreignowned enterprises (WFOEs) exceeded that of JVs for the first time. Could it be that IJVs are on their way out as amarket entry method for British firms in China? This article reports on a qualitative study of business relationships between British and Chinese firms designed to examine the comparative advantages and disadvantages of IJVs and WFOEs. Case study companies came from a variety of industries and varied in terms of company size. The evidence from the case studies suggests that the preference for an IJV or a WFOE as amarket entry method depends on a number of key factors including company size, experience in China, type of industry, and conditions in the macro‐environment.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the complex processes involving state sacrifice of essential values, including a measure of sovereignty, in return for economic benefits which are substantial but not to a point of overshadowing all else.

The research agenda is addressed by reviewing systematically the extensive theoretical and empirical academic literature on China's entry into the World Trade Organization and drawing appropriate conclusions about how the issue at hand should ideally be approached at this juncture.

Useful observations emerge regarding the classification of relevant factors, conceptual integration, analytical responses to problems arising in the context of accelerating economic integration across the globe and realistic model building.

Insights generated may enhance understanding of the interplay between the forces of globalization and nationalism and lead to a more enlightened management of the ensuing tension.

Critical assessment undertaken may pave the way for a less segmented and more grounded academic work on the subject.

This study aims to quantitatively identify the impact of major economic and political factors on the US apparel imports from its 15 major trading partners between 1995 and 2006.

Ordinary‐least‐square (OLS) regression under a gravity model framework was utilized to construct the analysis. The determinants of US apparel imports were determined and their significance and direction of change over the period were quantified.

First, the growths of GDP and population both in the USA and within its trading partners have been drivers of US apparel import growth, while greater geographic distance between a trading partner and the USA significantly impedes its exports to the USA. Second, the positive impact on the US apparel imports from the supplying country's infrastructure development, literacy rate and its language commonality with the USA shows that these factors are pivotal to being a competitive US apparel supplier. Finally, preferential market access is proven to be crucial for suppliers to increase apparel exports to the USA.

In future work, the impact of these factors on disaggregated apparel categories could be investigated. Some emerging issues such as non‐tariff barriers could be exploited.

The findings reveal that the US apparel sourcing decisions are made on the basis of many different costs, not only labour cost, but also economic condition, government policy, infrastructure, transport time and cost, language/culture commonality etc.

The study provides a springboard for empirically analyzing the US apparel imports under a gravity model framework. The conclusions are drawn based on solid quantitative evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of regulatory reform on the asset allocation and capitalization of Chinese banks from 2002 to 2007, a period following China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The evidence rejects a hypothesis that the four categories of banks operating in China – the Big Four, Majority State, Majority Private, and Majority Foreign banks have converged toward common targets. Supplemental analysis indicates that domestic banks, but not foreign banks, adjust equally to their targets.

The paper concludes that, although Chinese banking remained segmented during this unique transitional period, a more uniform pattern has emerged for those Chinese banks that are domestically owned.

The authors employ a methodology that is explicitly designed to determine if banks have converged toward common approaches to asset allocation and capitalization, which has not been studies previously.