On August 31, scholars attended a symposium held by the School of Economics at Anhui University (AHU) to learn about and implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee while exploring ways to achieve high-quality regional economic development.

Essential role of innovation

Developing new quality productive forces is essential to promoting high-quality development. Li Jiangtao, deputy director of the teaching and research department on state governance at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, explained that the defining feature of new quality productive forces is real, effective innovation in new technologies, new industries, new models, new fields, and new drivers. It is about fundamental, cutting-edge, and disruptive innovation with tremendous promise.

In the view of Su Jian, director of the National Economy Research Center at Peking University, traditional fiscal policies, monetary policies, and policies to support innovation are substitutive. He added that demand can be expanded not only through product innovation and the development of new quality productive forces, but also through traditional demand management policies. Long-term, sustainable, and stable economic development can only be realized by solving systemic, long-standing problems through innovation support policies, and by addressing contingent, pressing issues with traditional demand management policies.

Liu Zhiying, a professor from the School of Management at the University of Science and Technology of China, noted that moving from science to technology and eventually to industry requires crossing a series of daunting thresholds. The first is the “twilight zone”—the challenging transition from applied research to applied basic research, where the potential application value of basic research must be identified. Next comes the “devil’s river,” representing the gap between applied basic research and technological development. Here, the question is whether applied research can effectively support the development of new technologies. Following this, innovators face the “death valley,” a treacherous phase between technological development and commercialization, where the viability of new technologies in a business context is tested. Finally, they must navigate “Darwin’s sea,” the stretch from initial commercialization to large-scale industrial development, where only the fittest technologies survive in the competitive market. Even after reaching large-scale industrial development, the threat of “recessionary gaps” looms—the ongoing challenge of maintaining innovation and avoiding stagnation.

The industrialization of sci-tech outcomes is a rather complex process, Liu summarized, emphasizing that the rise of a leading country in innovation necessitates the distribution of industrial chains and strategic emerging industries and the fostering of future industries around innovative chains.

Regional practices

With the full implementation of the national strategy of integrated regional development, the construction of a unified national market, and the adoption of a new development paradigm, the trend of industrial labor division and cooperation has become increasingly evident between regions, enabling them to leverage their respective strengths more effectively. Tian Shuying, Party secretary of the School of Economics at the AHU, pointed out that “distinctive towns” can be leveraged to effectively optimize regional industrial chains. By strengthening industrial linkages between distinctive towns, the multiplier effect will present itself to make industries more interconnected across the whole region, thus advancing synergistic regional development.

Rong Zhaozi, executive director of the Institute of Advanced Study of Economic and Social Development at the AHU, discovered from his survey that new forms of collective economic organization in Wuhu, Anhui Province, have functioned in the guidance, coordination, and supervision of market trade among contracted farmers, professional farmer cooperatives, and private capital. These organizations act as gatekeepers, not only guiding but also actively participating in the organization and management of professional farmer cooperatives. They also play a crucial role in facilitating contracted farmers’ participation in market trade.

Zhou Duanming, vice president of Hefei Normal University in Anhui, suggested accelerating the construction of interconnected infrastructure in northern Anhui to create a more favorable business environment and lower institutional trading costs. While vigorously developing new quality productive forces, traditional productive forces should also be considered to introduce manufacturing industries that can make full use of local factor endowments, he said.