The aim of the paper is to examine whether efforts aimed at expanding Chinese innovations are reflected by changes in Chinese exports. To achieve the aim the combination of both qualitative and quantitative approach was used incorporating linear regression analysis. The results show that China has firmly established itself as one of the leaders in innovations, as expressed in terms of patent applications, as well as of research and development expenditure. Although this achievement has not been accompanied by unambiguously positive development in the export share of high-tech products, the share of domestic value added in Chinese exports has been increasing continuously since 2010. With positive annual increase in the number of patent applications by residents per million inhabitants as well as in the research and development expenditure (as a percentage of gross domestic product), a positive annual increase in the domestic value added share in gross export may be expected with two years lag. These results indicate that China’s innovation-driven development strategy has positive impact on increasing the domestic value added in export, thus improving the competitive position of China on global markets. Even though several studies may be found showing that innovation had a positive impact on export performance at the level of companies in China, this study contributes to the existing literature by providing country level data analysis considering the origin of exported value added. When interpreting results of this study, certain limitations should be borne in mind. First, as the value of Chinese innovations may be challenged, patent applications as a measure of innovation could overestimate China's innovation capability. Second, only a limited number of observations including time series from 2005 to 2016 was available for the quantitative analysis, with respect to the used trade in valued added indicator. These limitations could be addressed in future research.

This paper aims to examine the EU’s foreign trade relations with China following the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), assess trade intensity developments and identify the export potential of China’s largest trading partners in the EU. We established two hypotheses:1) in the context of the BRI, the intensity of Chinese trade to the EU was higher than the intensity of EU trade to China during the period considered; 2) the export potential of the EU’s most important partners to China in 2019 focused on higher value-added commodities in the context of the BRI. We used the trade intensity index to confirm hypothese 1. In the case of hypothese 2, the export potential indicator was used to identify products that have good prospects for further export. The EU is China’s largest trading partner with a growing trend in mutual trade. An examination of trade intensity has shown that trade flows between countries have been lower than expected given the position of economies in the world economy. German exporters recorded the highest activity, but the Netherlands recorded the highest intensity of Chinese exports to the EU. Coetaneous, we can say that Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands had the untapped export potential to China, which mainly concerned motor vehicles and parts, machinery, and pharmaceutical components. The BRI can be seen as a slightly positive impact on the development of trade and investment cooperation between the EU and China

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In 2013, the Chinese government announced the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) with one of the major goals to improve connectivity across Eurasia. China has been signalling to the EU member states they are welcome to joint activities on BRI. This paper focuses on analysing China's recent initiative by explaining EU perspectives and the role of the BRI by example of Italy and Germany, i.e. two major EU economies. The results show that there are significant differences in perception of the BRI within these economies. While Italy has followed the CEE countries, which fully support BRI at both government and corporate level and record many investments, Germany has been much more sceptical, especially at the government level. Although China is making large investments in Germany, BRI has yielded no tangible investment activities there. Rather, BRI activities related to Germany have remained limited to railway operation projects connecting Germany and China.

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