Wood forest products (WFPs) are globally important environmental products, with economic, ecological, and renewable characteristics. China is the world's largest WFP exporter. However, many factors, such as the downturn of traditional major export markets and the rise of the price of production factors, have generated great challenges and uncertainties for China's WFP export market. This study improves the product scope of WFPs. The category of WFPs has been expanded to 14 categories and 30 sub-categories, which is more detailed and more developed than in previous literature. Based on the United Nations' Comtrade Database (COMTRADE), this paper uses the revised constant market share (CMS) model to measure and analyze empirically the factors affecting the export growth of China's WFPs from the perspective of market, structure, and competitiveness. It is found that (1) the competitive effect exerts the biggest influence on export growth, followed by market size effects, with the effects of market distribution and product structure both being small; (2) wooden furniture, wooden products, plywood, paper, and its products play a main role in enhancing the competitive effect in China's WFPs; and (3) China's WFPs have a strong market competitiveness in other markets such as the USA, China Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Therefore, it is crucial for China's WFP market to improve its product structure effects and market distribution effects in order for it to participate in international competition. On the other hand, considering that China's exports of WFPs mainly consist of resource-and labor-intensive products, the improvement of standards such as the technology level, environmental protection and sustainable development, must not be ignored.

With the increasing scarcity of traditional energy sources, global warming and environmental degradation, the increased use of renewable energy (RE) has become an effective path for sustainable development. Therefore, countries are paying more and more attention to the development of the RE industry, and the world trade in renewable energy products (REPs) is developing rapidly. First of all, this paper defines REPs, refines the scope of REPs, and proposes the “Equalization Technology Classification” method for the technology classification of REPs. Second, based on the United Nations Comtrade (COMTRADE) data, the export technology structure of China’s REPs from 2007 to 2016 was empirically measured. Finally, a comparative study was conducted on the renewable energy product (REP) export technologies of major REP exporting countries (or regions) in the world. We found that (1) China’s exports of REPs are mainly medium-high and medium technical complexity products, and that there are few high technical complexity products; (2) the export technology structure of China’s REPs is deteriorating, and its overall technical level is in the middle of the global industrial value chain. The export technology of China’s REPs has a gap compared with that of Denmark, Hong Kong China, and Singapore; (3) the technological competition of the world’s REPs is becoming increasingly fierce. The growth rates of REP technologies in South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia’s REPs are significantly higher than that of China.

Growing natural disaster intensity, ocean warming, air quality alerts, and a desire to emphasize sustainable practice has prompted countries to payincreased attention to the development of environmental industries. This has led to trade in environmental goods (EGs) and a need for export technology research. The purpose of this paper is to measure the evolution of the technological structure of China’s export EGs and its position in the international industrial value chain. Based on the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) EGs list and United Nations Comtrade (COMTRADE) data, this study uses the technical complexity index to empirically calculate the technology structure and level changes of China’s EGs exports from 2007 to 2016. The results are then compared with those of the Asia-Pacific region and the world’s major exporters of EGs. Additionally, this study proposes a method called “Equalization Technology Classification” that divides all EGs into five technical levels: high, medium-high, medium, medium-low, and low. The research finds that (1) China’s EGs exports are predominately of medium-low technical complexity, and while the proportion of exported goods with high technical complexity is very low, the export technology structure is constantly being optimized. (2) Compared with Singapore, the United States, and the European Union, the overall technical level of China’s exported EGs is lagging behind. (3) The overall technical level of exported EGs in major exporting countries is rapidly increasing but is especially impressive in South Korea and China, where growth ranks first and second in the world, respectively.