The digital economy is an important driving force for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. This paper uses 2013-2019 manufacturing panel data to empirically test the impact of digital economic growth on China's manufacturing export competitiveness. The results show that, first, the degree of integration of manufacturing and digital economy in the eastern region is higher than that in the central and western regions. Second, the development of the digital economy has indeed had a significant positive impact on the export competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry. Third, the digital economy has different impacts on the export competitiveness of manufacturing industries in different industries and regions. Based on the findings, some suggestions are made to further enhance the export competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry, such as paying attention to the development of digital infrastructure, optimizing the mode of integration of the manufacturing sector and the digital economy, and enhancing international collaboration in digital technology innovation.
Keywords: digital economy; entropy method; export competitiveness; manufacturing industry; principal component analysis; technical complexity.