QUALITATIVE CHANGES IN CHINA’S FOREIGN TRADE IN THE ERA OF “NEW NORMAL”

Since the second decade of the 21st century, the Chinese economy has reached a qualitatively higher stage of development. In literature, this development stage is referred to as the “new normal” and is characterized by the balancing of disproportions in the Chinese economy. The present paper deals with the qualitative changes in Chinese foreign trade from the end of the global financial crisis to the present “new normal” era. The main aim of the paper is to examine the qualitative changes in the commodity structure of China’s exports and imports during the “new normal” in the second decade of the 21st century. We conclude that during this period, the Chinese economy was transformed into an economy with a high GDP share of innovative secondary and tertiary sectors with a change in the commodity structure of foreign trade in favour of high valued products. We conclude that China’s position in the world economy is changing from a “world factory” to an innovative economy.