Abstract: Participating in international vertical division of labour is able to improve the technological content of export products, the fact has been proven by the practices in China, but whether or not it could improve the domestic technological contents of Chinese export products is still debatable. By using the data of Chinese manufacturing industry between 2001 and 2010, the domestic technological contents of Chinese exports products are calculated. It is found that the level of domestic technology of Chinese export products is continuously increasing, but it is different for different industries. The level for traditional capital-intensive industries is higher; the performance of high-tech industry is quite poor. The impact factors of domestic technological contents for Chinese export products are studied, it is found that the impact of vertical specialization is quite small, mainly affecting by the R&D investment. Therefore, the independent innovation should be strengthened, at the same time improving the imports of high-tech content products.

Key words: domestic technological content, influential factor, independent innovation