Abstract: International technology diffusion is the important path to influence the improvement of technical innovation ability of the local enterprise. By making use of the regional panel data from 2003 to 2008, this paper conducts an empirical test on the impacts of different types of international technology diffusion on the technological innovation ability of the domestic enterprises. The results show that the competition effect and the spillover effect of foreign R&D have significant positive impact on China’s lower level technological innovation capability, while no significant impact on the higher level technological innovation ability. The imitation effect reflected by the degree of localized production of foreign-funded enterprises has significant positive effect on the higher level technological innovation capability of the domestic enterprise, while no significant effect on the lower level technology innovation ability. The purchase of foreign technology has significant positive effect on the technical innovation capability at all levels of the domestic enterprises, but the positive effect on the higher level is smaller than that on the lower level.

Key words: foreign direct investment; technology spillover effect; international technology transfer; independent innovation ability; domestic enterprise