The Effect of Carbon Sink Afforestation Projects on China’s Forest Product Export Trade: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Microenterprises

Forestry carbon sinks are an important measure for enabling China to cope with global climate change and realize its “double carbon” goal. Carbon sink afforestation projects (CSAPs) are a type of forestry carbon sink projects, and the question of whether China’s forest products with an export orientation can adapt to the requirements of high-quality development is important for balancing the relationship between emissions reduction and development. We use the micro-data of forest product export enterprises provided by the China Customs Database and construct a difference-in-difference (DID) model to investigate the impact of CSAPs on China’s forest product export and its heterogeneity. The results show that CSAPs significantly increase the export scale of China’s forest products. CSAPs lead to significant heterogeneity regarding the forest product export scale in relation to regions, production factor intensity, trade pattern, enterprise ownership, and export destination countries. We further find that although the implementation of CSAPs significantly reduces the export types of forest products, it significantly promotes an increase in the export price and the expansion of the export quantity of forest products, and it optimizes the export structure of forest products to some extent. The “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI) has played a significant positive role in regulating the expansion of the forest product export scale with CSAPs. The implementation of CSAPs reduces the risk of termination of trade relations among forest product export enterprises and extends the export duration. The conclusions provide implications for policy makers and managers of forest product enterprises.