Research on the impact of the digital economy on high-quality development of foreign trade---starting from Guangdong Province

The digital economy is an emerging economic paradigm. Digital technology and innovation have facilitated the transformation and upgrading of the global economy. Guangdong Province, as an important province in China's foreign trade. It plays an important role in the development of China's foreign trade. This paper calculates the total factor productivity (TFP) of Guangdong Province by using relevant data from 2011 to 2022. It also constructs an empirical analysis to examine the impact of the digital economy on the development of high-value foreign trade. It is found that the digital economy has a positive impact on the increase of total factor productivity (TFP). The increase in TFP significantly enhances the export competitiveness of Guangdong Province. It also promotes the optimisation of export product structure. The main evidence of this is the significant increase in the share of high-tech products in total exports.