Advancement expectations

NORTHWESTERN DEVELOPMENT: Pictured is a winter ranch in the Tianshan Mountain valley of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The recent Xinjiang regional economic revitalization planning is the 13thregional economic plan launched by China since 2009 (SHEN QIAO)

A recent report by the Institute of Territorial Development and Regional Economics of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, which carries out special studies on the intensive release of regional economic initiatives by the State Council, held that the general strategy of China's regional development has been primarily formed. Still, many significant issues remain to be solved in terms of the administrative mechanism of coordinating regional development.

"Because the functions of regulating regional development in China are individually exercised by several departments, the division of responsibilities is not clear and regulation guidelines for various departments are different, the effect of regional development administration is often not as expected. Reforming the regional administration mechanism with the goal of uniform and effective management has not received enough emphasis," said the report.

Difficulties in carrying out regional revitalization plans are prevalent, especially in coordinating the plans involving different administrative regions, due in part to competition between different administrative regions. Such competition often breaks through the due "baseline" between them. For example, some local governments may compete for investment by providing free land and other natural resources and lowering environmental standards. Some provinces even ignore the impact of local economic development upon adjacent regions and seek local economic growth at the price of destroying their neighbors' environment.

"Obvious defects of the present diversified administration pattern include: for different interests and targets, different departments often adopt conflicting policies; and diversified administration makes it difficult to effectively avoid redundant projects and policies, which will lead to the waste of public resources," said the report.

According to the report, as time passes, the situation will be rectified as a virtuous regional interactive pattern forms. "Promotion of coordinated regional development has broken the boundaries among administrative regions and has taken into consideration the carrying capacity of regional resources and environment, the development basis and development potential," the report said.