| This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the strategy on development of China's western region. With a land area of 6.85 million square km, accounting for 71.4 percent of the country's total, the western region has been an indispensable part in achieving China's overall prosperity and development. In an effort to change the slow-moving social and economic situation in the vast western region, in November 1999 the Chinese Government decided to initiate its western development strategy. Ten years have passed, but has the strategy paid off as expected?
Chen Dongsheng, Deputy Director of the China Regional Economics Institute and a researcher at the Institute of Finance and Trade Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, offered his insights in the Guangming Daily. Edited excerpts follow:
In the 1980s and 1990s when development-related priority was given to east China, the west was left out of the overall domestic economic surge. In 1999, the western region's per-capita GDP was only 41.3 percent that of the eastern region, contributing to the growth of an even bigger gap between the two regions than had existed in 1978. As a matter of fact, China's east, west and central regions each play a different yet significant, role in regional economic cooperation. In this sense, their coordinated development should be a means to maintain the sustained and speedy growth of the overall national economy. After 20 years of rapid development, China has seen a significant increase in its comprehensive national strength, which has enabled it to concentrate on developing its western region.
Development and achievements
In the past decade, 102 key construction projects have been launched in the western region, with investments totaling 1.74 trillion yuan ($255.9 billion). During that period of time, the western region witnessed an average annual growth of more than 20 percent in total fixed asset investments. Infrastructure construction, ecological management and environment protection have all made substantial advances.
A host of major projects, including the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the west-east gas pipeline and the west-east electricity transmission project, have since been completed and put into full operation. With environmental improvements concerning investment and entrepreneurship, the western region has realized an average annual GDP growth of more than 11 percent, higher than the 9.45-percent growth rate it experienced between 1978 and 1998.
While the sweeping global financial crisis put pressure on overseas demand, the GDP growth in the western region exceeded that of the eastern region. In the first quarter of 2009, the top five provinces (Guizhou, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces and Inner Mongolia and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous regions) in the western region realized a double-digit GDP growth year on year, higher than the national average of 6.1 percent.
In addition to the numerical progress, what is more precious is that the western region, after long-time practice, has found an innovative way of industrialization, agricultural modernization and urbanization.
Amid the economic globalization, the western region should make itself involved by selling its rich resources and local products to the international market at a low operation cost. The foremost task is to develop transportation and telecommunication networks. In the last decade, the western region has built new roads and new railways with a total length of 850,000 km and 8,500 km, respectively. At the same time, the project of blacktop roads to every county and traffic way to every village is under construction.
For long, the western region has been attaching much importance to talents. In these years, education in the western region has been pushed forward vibrantly, sending a host of talents and providing technological backup for its development. In an effort to further enlarge enrollment in the western region, highly acclaimed universities in Shanghai and Beijing have been encouraged to gradually expand their enrollment in the region. From 2009, several key universities in the western region, including Qinghai University, Ningxia University, Tibetan University and Shihezi University, will get support from the Central Government, the Ministry of Education and local governments.
Experience learned
Ever since the implementation of the strategy on the development of the western region, the region has made progress in economic construction, but further efforts are needed to spur its development.
First, the western region should develop its dominant industries with local distinction in accordance with their geographic location and resources. In 2008, the production of coal, crude oil, electricity and cotton in the region accounted for 43.9 percent, 29 percent, 28 percent and 43.7 percent of the country's total, respectively, making it the country's production base for energy and cotton.
The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region took advantage of its rich coal resources and enhanced its coal industry chain by further developing its coal chemical industries, including power plants, oil extraction from coal and ether fuel. Simultaneously, dairy, wind power generation, solar energy and desert-affiliated industries were also strengthened. In the past 10 years, the average annual growth of GDP in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region topped 16 percent. The western region has established the energy, chemical, nonferrous metal, rare earth, potassium, phosphorus, agriculture, animal husbandry, equipment manufacturing, hi-tech and tourism as its core regional industries. The low-emission economy was also among the key industries to receive support in the western region.
Second, technology and innovation should always be the propelling forces for the development of the western region. While the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region strove to extend its coal industry chain, it could not have done so without technological support. In response to the global financial crisis, science and innovation have played a more predominant role than ever before.
The Xi'an-based Rainbow Group, founded in the early 1980s, was China's first color kinescope producer. When its product sales began to come down and a predicament that threatened its survival began to develop, Rainbow drew on technological advances and strategic management innovations to switch to flat screen production. As we all know, innovation, as the engine for enterprises and product upgrading, also boosts changes in regional growth modes and the optimization of the industrial structure.
Third, the diversification of economic ownership should be encouraged. The experience in the development of the western region has demonstrated that the national economy, as well as the regional economy, should be propelled by public ownership and other types of ownership. The full development of various forms of ownership will stimulate the enthusiasm of society as a whole, enabling all elements, such as labor, knowledge, technology, management and capital, to be fully engaged.
Although the western region has narrowed economic distance with the east, more efforts should be made to improve the environment for the private sector so as to create more job opportunities in the region.
West China:
Population: 356 million, accounting for 28.6 percent of the national total
Area: 6.85 million square km, accounting for 71.4 percent of the country's total
GDP in 2008: 5.83 trillion yuan ($856.6 billion), accounting for 17.8 percent of the country's total |
