How Would China's Exports be Affected by a Unilateral Appreciation of the RMB and a Joint Appreciation of Countries Supplying Intermediate Imports?

In 2005 55% of China's exports were "processed exports" produced using intermediate goods that came from other countries. The lion's share of the volume of imports for processing and of the value-added of processed exports came from other East Asian countries. We investigate how a unilateral appreciation of the RMB and a joint appreciation of countries supplying intermediate inputs would affect China's exports. To do this we estimate a panel data model including ordinary and processed exports from China to 33 countries. Results obtained using generalized method of moments techniques indicate that a joint appreciation would significantly reduce China's processed exports while a unilateral appreciation would not.