A study of Forecasting Methods for the Cross-Straits Trade

摘要

Both China and Taiwan have already obtained the WTO membership and officially participated in the international trade system. The economic and trade relationship between China and Taiwan should develop by following the rules of international trade development. Due to the high rate of growth of the economic and trade exchange between China and Taiwan, up until now, Taiwan has relied heavily on the mainland for its exports and vice versa. This study is intended to probe the issue. We established forecast models for the cross-strait trade through the methods of grey forecasting, simple regression, and exponential smoothing. In addition, it tests the accuracy of the forecast models through relevant data, and used MAPE and MSE to evaluate the forecast models. The results indicate that for model selection, it is more correct to perform the forecast on trade volume based on the statistical information released by Taiwan Customs. It can be seen from this model, the cross-strait trade volume in 2008 will exceed USD $73,500 million, with imports into Taiwan above USD $36,373 million. It is hoped to understand the cross-strait trade growth trend in the future with the forecast model established by our research institute and thus providing the government or the agencies concerned with reference information for making their cross-strait policies.