Analysis on the Impact of Changes in Industrial Export Trade Structure on China's Energy Intensity

Energy intensity is an important indicator which reflects the synthetical efficiency for energy utilization of a country.As the largest production sector in energy consumption in China,industry has become an important influential factor on energy intensity owing to its export production.This also shows that the adjustment of export structure of industry is one of the important measures for achieving energy-saving.Based on time-series and cross-section data of China's 33 industrial branches,this paper applies multiple linear regression models to analyze the actual impacts on energy intensity of the changes in industry export proportion of different levels consisting of low,medium and high energy-consuming sector groups from 1992 to 2008.The analysis suggests that the impacts on energy intensity of changes in export proportion of high and medium energy-consuming sector groups as well as low energy-consuming sector group turn out to be positive and negative respectively.Moreover,the increase in export share of low energy-consuming sector group produces an effect greater on reducing energy intensity than the corresponding effect of the decrease in export share of high and medium energy-consuming sector group.The impact of the changes in export share of the three energy-consuming sector groups on energy intensity reflects changes in the internal structure of China's industry and the characteristics of energy demand in different industrial branches.On these grounds,this paper puts forward some policy recommendations such as optimizing the industrial structure and internal structure of industry,increasing the R D investment to promote the upgrade of traditional export products,and merging more effective and feasible economic means with energy-saving and emission reduction measures,etc.