Abstract: By establishing a table of comparisons between the 5 digit classified commodities of SITC and 28 China’s manufacturing sectors, this paper calculates the trade competitiveness index and price terms of trade of 28 China’s manufacturing industries with the micro trading data. The results indicate that firstly, the labor intensive sectors have higher trade competitiveness index and the price terms of trade is continuously deteriorating; while the capital intensive sectors have the inverse situations. Secondly, the trade competitiveness index and the price terms of trade in the medium-high technology sectors are changing in the same direction, showing a tendency of increase in both price and quantity; but in the medium-low technology sectors the situations are just the opposite. Thirdly, to further develop the medium-high technology sectors while at the same time to increase the quality of export products of the lower-high technology sectors is an effective way to prevent China’s manufacturing industry from“immiserizing growth”.

Key words: manufacturing industry; price terms of trade; trade competitiveness