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Reform, innovation key to Yangtze River Delta

Author  :  HUANG YA’NAN     Source  :    Chinese Social Sciences Today     2019-04-22

Reform and innovation are crucial for the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, said experts in early April at the Beijing launch event of the 2018 report on high-quality integrated growth in the YRD region.

As one of China’s most thriving, open and innovation-capable regions, the YRD region should be a model for implementing new ideas of development, exploring and innovating methods of coordinated regional development, and building a modern economic system.

The high-quality integrated development in the YRD region shoulders three new missions, said Wang Zhen, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. First, it needs to take the lead in deepening reform at a higher level, in eliminating administrative barriers, and in building a more effective, orderly and dynamic modern economic system and modern social governance system. The second is to promote a higher level of openness and to strive to develop into a world-class industrial cluster, a source of global technological innovation and a center for global resource allocation. Its third mission is to narrow the gap within the region through integration.

Chen Liu, a research fellow from the Yangtze IDEI at Nanjing University, said that the YRD region is a leader in China’s economic, social and cultural development, and its most important task is to build a modern industrial system under the conditions of greater openness and to enhance the competitiveness of China’s high-tech industries and strategic emerging industries.

Hong Yinxing, honorary director of the Yangtze River Delta Economics and Social Development Research Center at Nanjing University, said that to facilitate regional integration in the YRD, it is necessary to expand the capacity of central cities in the region and to promote the urban integration among Shanghai and its surrounding cities. As such, the non-central urban functions of Shanghai can be transferred to its adjacent area, realizing optimal allocation of resources within a larger scope and expanding space for development.

To facilitate such integration, Hong suggested prioritizing the construction of institutional mechanisms, infrastructure interconnection and a regional common market. In addition, Hong said it is necessary to facilitate applying scientific research results to industry and business and to share benefits along with science and technology policies. Hong also encouraged promoting the free flow of scientific and technological talent on the premise of clearing the obstacles caused by administrative regions.

The Yangtze River Economic Belt needs to play a leading role in promoting the country’s economic growth, said Wu Xiaohua, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research. With its rich resources for science and technology education, strong platform for innovation, solid industrial base and high degree of openness to the outside world, the YRD region should have a greater role in promoting the transition from the openness characterized by the free flow of commodities and factors of production to institutional openness based on rules. The integration of the YRD has been developing for many years. At this new historical starting point, it is important to explore a new mechanism of coordinated regional development fitting the characteristics of the region through innovation, optimization and synergy.

Wei Wei, vice president of the China Association of Regional Economics, said that in recent years, the regional integrated development of the YRD has certainly had some achievements, but there are still many problems with system integration and action coordination. Integrated regional development in the YRD is a long and complicated process that will accompany the entire historical process of China’s reform and opening up.

The key to regional integration in the Yangtze River Delta lies in innovating with the negotiation mechanism and the promotion mechanism, said Luo Weiguang, head of the transportation and energy group at the Yangtze River Delta Regional Cooperation Office.

China’s economy is undergoing the transition to high-quality growth and has entered the stage of innovation-driven development, said Liu Zhibiao, director of the Yangtze IDEI at Nanjing University. After the regional integrated development of the YRD has been elevated to a national strategy, the most important problem will still be coordination at the institutional level.

In the future, efforts should be made in two aspects, Liu noted. First, it is imperative to promote market integration and to resolutely break the institutional and systemic barriers to the free flow and efficient allocation of resources and factors of production. The second is to strengthen the coordination of local government functions.

Solving the problems of regional coordination, benefit sharing and cost sharing is essential to the integrated development of the YRD region, said Fan Conglai, director of the Yangtze River Delta Economics and Social Development Research Center at Nanjing University. Integration should be related to the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the construction of the Belt and Road.

 

Edited by Jiang Hong

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor: Yu Hui

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