Abstract: Based on the theory of trade competition effect, this paper mainly adopts the matching and merging data of the period of 2002—2013 from China Industrial and Enterprise Database, China Enterprise Patent Database, China Patent Full-text Database (CNKI), China Customs Database, and CEPII-BACI database toinvestigate the impact of the initial productivity adjustment mechanism of the export market size of China’s general trade enterprises on the quantity and quality of technological innovation, as well as the timing choice of the impact of export market size growth rate on the quantity and quality growth rate of technology innovation. The results show that, on the whole, only when the initial productivity of enterprises exceeds a threshold level can the positive impact of export market size on the quantity and quality of technological innovation appear.In terms of the structure, the enterprises with positive impacts of export market size on the quantity and quality of technological innovation are mainly concentrated around such industries as the chemical raw material and chemical products manufacturing, the medicine manufacturing, the general-purpose equipment manufacturing, the electric machinery and equipment manufacturing, and the computer, communication and other electric equipment manufacturing. In terms of timing, the growth of the quantity and quality of technological innovation of the general trading enterprises occurs in the second year and the third year after the growth of export market size respectively. Therefore, local governments should improve the business environment and reduce taxes and fees for the export enterprises. The export enterprises should improve productivity, reduce costs, expand the size of export markets, and shorten the time for innovation decision-making, so as to let export market size play a positive role in promoting the quantity and quality of innovation.

Key words: general trade, export market size, initial productivity, technology innovation