Empirical Analysis of Export Trade of China to the Countries along the Maritime Silk Road: Taking Forest Product as Study Case

Countries along the Maritime Silk Road are rich in forest resources, and their demand structure of forest products is similar to China's. Therefore, strengthening bilateral trade of forest products may improve the situation influenced by financial crisis, trade barriers and political factors in forest product trade. Thus it is of significance to explore the current situation and influencing factors of forest product trade between China and countries along the Maritime Silk Road. Based on the three-way gravity model, selecting the relevant data from representative countries(Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.) along the Maritime Silk Road during 2002-2015 and taking forest product as study case, this paper investigated the influencing factors of export trade of China to the countries along the Maritime Silk Road. The results revealed that the following elements impacted the export of China to the countries along the Maritime Silk Road: economic scales of two sides of trade, the exchange rate, distance between two countries, and trade barriers. In addition, the import intends in Vietnam, Malaysia and Egypt were strong, however, not so in India and Laos. Therefore, the suggestions are proposed as such: enhancing the trade with the countries with potential import demand, increasing the supports to the countries with strong import intend, and improving the financial markets with the countries along the Maritime Silk Road.