Measurement and spatiotemporal evolution of geo-economic relationships in China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry

Abstract

In recent years, continuous changes in geo-economics and environment, especially the rise in global trade protectionism, have severely impacted China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, which is dominant in international trade. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the geo-economic environment and influence factors of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, and puts forward strategies to improve the competitiveness of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry and promote its high-quality development.This paper selects indicators that can reflect the geo-economic relationships of competition and complementarity, including household final consumption expenditure (% of GDP), sporting goods import and export trade volumes (% of GDP), FDI (% of GDP) and R&D (% of GDP) from 2013 to 2018. Using the standardized Euclidean distance method, the geo-economic relationship of sporting goods manufacturing industry between China and each One Belt and One Road Initiative (BRI) country is obtained. Statistic results show that the geo-economic relationship of the sporting goods manufacturing industry between China and other BRI countries is more competitive than complementary. Meanwhile, a map generated by the ARCGIS10.0 platform shows that competition between China and the BRI countries increased from 2013 to 2018. According to the analysis of statistical data regarding the aspects of the industrial structure of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, geo-economics and geopolitics, respectively, several proposals are put forward for the high-quality development of the sporting goods manufacturing industry in China.