Abstract: In the context of international trade liberalization, China’s enterprises are facing greater pressure of survival. This paper explores a way for enterprises to survive and develop in this kind of trading environment, that is, to increase the proportion of service supply in their business structure, so as to better adapt to market changes, which is called the servitization of manufacturing industry. The results of the measurement based on the data of the listed manufacturing enterprises show that the lower import tariff of the manufacturing industry causes enterprises to shift from commodity production to service supply, and the trade liberalization promotes and realizes the transformation of Chinese enterprises. It is also found through a mechanism analysis that, under the background of tariff reduction, the manufacturing industry outsourcing its production activities to foreign countries is not the key to realize its transformation of servitization, nothing but the cultivation of enterprises’ R&D ability is the important influencing factor to promote the reform of enterprise business modes under the background of trade liberalization. Because the R&D strength itself is the source of the enterprise comparative advantages, this also conforms to the mechanism of Heckscher-Ohlin theory.

Key words: servitization of manufacturing industry, trade liberalization, Heckscher-Ohlin Theory, outsourcing, R&D ability