Deepening of free trade agreement (FTA) participation is a core strategy for enhancing firm-level export quality and efficiency, addressing competitive pressures in international markets, and achieving high-quality economic development. Based on the measurement of the firm-level deepening of FTA participation indicator, this paper explores its impact on firm-level export product quality and the underlying mechanisms. Research results indicate that deepening of FTA participation promotes the upgrading of firm-level export product quality, a conclusion that remains robust after endogeneity tests and multiple robustness checks. Mechanism analysis results reveal that deepening of FTA participation impacts firm-level export product quality by improving intermediate goods input quality and reducing intermediate goods input cost. Heterogeneity analysis results indicate that deepening of FTA participation has a more significant positive impact on the export quality of firms with stronger institutional linkage intensity, greater dependence on international supply chains, and those not located in high-level opening-up zones. Structural decomposition and export dynamics analysis results demonstrate that deepening of FTA participation drives quality upgrading by facilitating the exit of low-quality products and the entry of high-quality products through the survival-of-the-fittest effect. In the context of a complex and volatile international environment, this paper provides theoretical foundations and policy implications for Chinese firms to cope with changes in the external environment and achieve high-quality development of export trade.

In recent years, driven by economic development, international competition, and other factors, China has accelerated the opening up of its services sector, exhibiting characteristics such as behind-the-border, integrated, active opening up, and supply chain integration. This indicates that the opening up of China’s services sector has entered a new phase, necessitating the adoption of various strategies and paths to further advance the opening up of related fields. Additionally, the international environment facing the opening up of China’s services sector is becoming increasingly complex. The rise of protectionism, the accelerated reconstruction of international economic and trade rules, and the digitization and green transformation of services trade have all increased the uncertainty of the international environment. Although China’s current approach to opening up the services sector has yielded positive outcomes, there remains significant potential for further enhancement in breadth, depth, precision, resilience, quality, and efficiency when benchmarked against international best-practice standards. In the future, it is necessary for China’s services sector to further coordinate border and behind-the- border opening up, as well as domestic and international opening up, and establish a multi-tiered coordinated opening-up system . Moreover, there is a need to strengthen industrial promotion, improve risk prevention and control, and further reinforce China’s voice in formulating international economic and trade rules.

Against the dual background of the continuing instability of the international trade environment and the urgent need to build a new development pattern in China, the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that it is necessary to further smooth the circulation of both supply and demand and continue to promote high-standard opening up guided by expanding domestic demand. Studies on the supply and external demand side of export tax rebates (ETRs) have been widely discussed, but related studies on the domestic demand side are scarce. This paper uses product-level ETRs and regional-level price and wage data in China from 2004 to 2021 to examine the impact of the ETR policy on consumer welfare. This paper finds that the increase in the ETRs improves the level of consumer welfare by lowering the price level, that is, reducing the consumption effect, and raising the wage level to increase the income effect. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that low-income consumers and the eastern region benefit the most from the ETR increase. Therefore, the government should further advance the implementation of ETR policy to fully play its role in promoting foreign trade and expanding domestic demand, thus realizing China’s high-standard opening up.

In the period of rapid economic growth, the focus is on expanding the scale of production factors, whereas high-quality development requires improving the efficiency of these factors. Based on a multilevel statistical model, this paper incorporates marketization and opening up as influencing factors of economic growth factor efficiency into the analytical framework and constructs an econometric model to examine the effects of marketization and opening up on the efficiency of economic growth factors, thereby broadening the scope of the economic growth model to facilitate efficiency analysis. On this basis, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of marketization and opening up on the efficiency of provincial economic growth factors using China’s provincial data from 1998 to 2022. The empirical results show the following four points . Firstly, significant differences exist in total factor productivity (TFP), capital efficiency, labor efficiency, human capital efficiency, and technological innovation efficiency across provinces in China. Secondly, improvements in the development of product and factor markets contribute to increased TFP; more foreign direct investment does not facilitate TFP improvement, whereas increased trade in goods fosters the improvement of TFP. Thirdly, higher foreign direct investment promotes labor efficiency and human capital efficiency, while greater trade in goods suppresses human capital efficiency. Fourthly, the efficiency improvement of economic growth factors exhibits regional and temporal heterogeneity. In the course of economic growth, Chinese provinces should base their reform and opening-up policy frameworks on efficiency improvement, while accounting for inter-provincial disparities and temporal trends, to achieve high-quality economic development.

Expanding domestic demand is the strategic cornerstone for fostering a new development paradigm. The in-depth implementation of the strategy to expand domestic demand should transcend the traditional perspective, placing greater emphasis on expanding the domestic demand system and optimizing its structure, while positioning the expansion of new domestic demand as the primary focus and strategic priority. By allowing new demand to drive new supply, and new supply in turn to generate new demand, a robust synergy between the two can be achieved. In the long-term strategy of fostering industrial upgrading, improving economic quality, and transforming development models, it is essential to align the expansion of new domestic demand with the promotion of new supply, thus effectively integrating short-term demand management with long- term supply-side regulation. To expand the scope for domestic demand growth, structural domestic demand policies should be implemented. In terms of consumer demand, efforts should focus on stimulating new demand in digitalization, intelligence, new products, and new services to promote the upgrading of consumption structures. Regarding investment demand, priority should be given to production investment in new products and services, new infrastructure, and human capital, thereby forging new advantages in international cooperation and competition through new domestic demand and driving the international circulation with a robust domestic circulation . As for implementation mechanisms, industrial innovation should be led by new demand and new markets created by new supply, while better leveraging the role of the government to continuously bolster the endogenous drivers of economic growth.