Does China’s plywood exports depend on trade partners? Evidence from the Gravity Model

A gravity model was formulated to identify the factors related to China’s plywood exports and examine whether the impact of factors depends on trader partners using panel data from 2005 to 2015. The dataset was divided into three groups based on the income of trade partners. The findings reveal that the factors perform different in three groups. For the high income group, GDP, per capita GNI, the ratio of per capita forest area and Open were related to China’s plywood exports. GDP, the ratio of per capita forest area, exchange rate and Open were correlated to China’s plywood export for the middle income group. In the low income group, per capita GNI, the ratio of per capita forest area, Open and Free Trade Agreements were significantly related to China’s plywood exports.