The Yangtze River Economic Belt should be treated as a livable economic agglomeration belt instead of a region for transportation or resource consumption, said a researcher from Nanjing University at the third Yangtze River Economic Belt Development Forum and the Symposium on the Yangtze River Economic Belt Green Development, held in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, on April 7.

Structural adjustment should be carried out using new industrialization concepts in heavy chemical industries along the river and the sea, said Liu Zhibiao, director of the Nanjing University’s Jiangsu Yangtze River Industrial Economic Research Institute.

Chen Wenling, chief economic manager of China Center for International Economic Exchanges, called for white space in exploration-prohibited areas left in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Less resource-intensive light industries can be chosen in exploration-restricted areas while low-end industries can be replaced by mid-level and high-end ones in key areas for development, thus realizing the gradient transfer and periodic replacement of the industries along the belt, Chen said.

Cheng Changchun, director of the Jiangsu Yangtze Economic Belt Research Institute, suggested establishing a mechanism for sharing the costs of pollution oversight, such as implementing a government-sponsored public platform for environmental protection governance and requiring enterprises to assume the necessary pollution-control costs.