Research on the Evolution of High-Quality Development of China's Provincial Foreign Trade

The new development concept is the theoretical guidance and important foundation for high-quality foreign trade development in the new era. This paper develops an evaluation index system to measure the high-quality development level of foreign trade based on the meaning of high-quality development of foreign trade under the new concept of development. The dynamic changing trend of high-quality development of China's provincial foreign trade from 2013 to 2019 and the ranking change of the development index are examined in this paper using a time series factor model. Finally, China's provinces are categorized based on the quality of their foreign trade development. The findings show that, from 2013 to 2019, China's high-quality foreign trade development has been on the rise; the level of high-quality foreign trade development has been raised to varying degrees in the eastern, central, and western regions of China, but each region plays a different role. Compared to 2013, the truly "high-quality" areas of China's provincial foreign trade development were always concentrated in the eastern region, which ranked high on the comprehensive evaluation index, while the "low-quality" areas were mainly concentrated in the central and western regions, which ranked low on the comprehensive evaluation index.