The Regional Economic New Territory: the Features and the Engine of Economic Development in Inner Mongolia

Transcription

1 The Regional Economic New Territory: the Features and the Engine of Economic Development in Inner Mongolia ZHAO Xiuli, GUO Xueli School of Economics, Inner Mongolia Finance and Economics College, China, Abstract: Since the year of 2009, the economy of China has been making a significant planning and adjustment from the macroscopic level, the new territory of regional economy has been sketched and formed, the regional policy framework which promotes regionally balanced economic development also gradually establishes and increasingly perfects. The new territory of China s regional economy has offered opportunities for the economy development of all provinces and regions. For the Inner Mongolia region, how to use this opportunity to plan the economic development and industrial layout? This paper, based on the Density, Distance and Division (3D) perspectives, describes and analyzes the space layout, strategic position, market prospects, market access, technical features and policy inclination of Inner Mongolia region economic development, tries to find its development bottleneck, and then puts forward the engine and related agri-business policy suggestions for Inner Mongolia economic development from the 3D level. Keywords: Balanced development, New Territory of Regional Economy, 3D Perspectives, Development engine 1 Introduction At the beginning of the reform and opening, the generalized non-balanced development strategy once promoted local growth of China's economy. But the regional development gap prompts the transformation of macroeconomic policy guidance from the non-balanced development strategy to a balanced development strategy. Since 2009, our country has issued fifteen regional development plans as a national strategy and seven regional policy documents. So far, the new territory has been sketched out for Chinese economic, and the new regional policy system framework also gradually establishes and increasingly perfects. The new territories of Chinese economic areas offered an opportunity for every region's economic development. According to the orientation of main body functions and space, all districts in succession determine the characteristics and focus of general ideas, frame layouts, system mechanism for the regional development, by which local economy geographically gets remodeling and integration. For the west area, the nation has launched several regional economic development plans, and ranks some western cities as prior development areas. Among them, The Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos areas are preliminarily determined as the leading development areas. Inner Mongolia region also depends on the opportunity actively to brew and launch the Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos regional development planning. The eastern area of Inner Mongolia also develops its infrastructure and related industries to realize the joint with the northeast regions and construct new economic growth pole in Inner Mongolia. Under the background of new national regional economy construction, how should Inner Mongolia plan the region of economic development and industrial layout? Where is the development engine? These problems are discussed in the following parts. 2 The Strength Analysis of Inner Mongolia s Regional Economic Development in the new Territory of Regional Economy 2.1 Following three characteristics and reassessing the development of regional economy 441

2 1 The transactions of economy among regions, especially of the regions which are geographically adjacent, is inevitable and economically indivisible for economic contacts. But with regards to the needs of administration and convenience, the complete economic layout has been compartmented and isolated in the political level, by which economy has the local border and the policy segmentation is also especially remarkable. Due to the differences of each region s policies, even though geographically adjoining, there are differences in economic development degree and development patterns. To construct the coordinated development of regional economy in the new territories, the man-made boundary and estrangement has become a big obstacle to economic development. Therefore, this article uses 3D (i.e., Density, Distance, and Division) angle presented in world development report (World Bank 2009). With this open angle, we re-examine the process and degree, advantages and disadvantages of regional economy development. Just as the world development report puts, using 3D characteristics to measure a region's economic development process, as using height, weight and age indicators to measure a person's growth, it is a dynamically changing process. Density is the economy density, which is used to show how many economic opportunities and the level of the ability of wealth creation, and to explain the speed of the region economy development. Improving economic density relies on the economies of scale. Distance reflects the level of regional market admittance and the degree of difficulty into the market to a great degree, which decide whether the economic subject could obtain the market opportunities. Division is caused by economic, political and cultural factors which induce the estrangement and un-identity between regions, which restrict the market access. For the different regions of the same country, the distance mainly depends on the weakness of infrastructure, the accessibility and affordability of transportation service.(2009,word Bank) 2.2 The development characteristics description of Inner Mongolia regional economy under the 3D perspectives Under the background of national construction of the new regional economic territory, for Inner Mongolia, how to grasp the development opportunity? With the 3D perspectives to examine the characteristics of Inner Mongolian region's economy development, we can sort out five features of the 3D perspectives: space layout and strategic position, market prospect, market access, technical features and policy inclination. The speed of Inner Mongolian economic growth continues to be in the first lead in China, whose economic development mode was once summed up as Inner Mongolian Mode and Inner Mongolia Phenomenon. Inner Mongolian GDP broke through one trillion yuan. Thus the Inner Mongolian region has joined the Trillions- GDP-Club At this speed, the regional economy of Inner Mongolia will surely become a growth pole of Chinese regional economy. From the geographical perspectives, Inner Mongolia borders in Mongolia, Russia, stretches across northeast, north and northwest), and adjoins to eight provinces. It has a million-square-kilometers area. By the end of 2010, its population will be about thousand, and Inner Mongolia is one of the countries that owns the most abundant national resources. So the characteristics of location advantages and resources endowment highlight the strategic position of Inner Mongolia region. At present, relying on its resources advantages, Inner Mongolia has shaped six leading agriculture industries and six leading industries and the cashmere products distribution region, Ordos. Regional economy has formed six plates and two economic development poles in spatial layout. One 1 Inner Mongolia Industry Development Research Base (Subject Name: The Dynamics of Domestic and Foreign Industrial Economic Theory, the Latest Achievements and Innovative Research in the Recent Thirty Years; Subject Number: nmcj0902zx). 2 Inner Mongolia Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (Item Name: The Regional Economic Layout and Development Mode of Our Country; Item Number: 10B022). 442

3 pole is called Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos area, known as the Golden Triangle in Mengxi area. The other pole is Mengdong area composed of five city -alliances in eastern Inner Mongolia. Although the Inner Mongolia region is sparsely populated, the speed of each big central city's population growth and gathering is very fast. The economic density of the Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos area is increasingly enhancing and the radiation and leading role is also gradually growing. The economic effects of the six major industrial plates and two economic growth poles in Inner Mongolia are increasingly diffusing and spillover. The economic and technical cooperation and contact of these areas with the boundary countries and regions economic ties are increasingly enhancing. In order to reduce the transportation cost, the Inner Mongolia region has constructed four major sections (roads, railways, power grid and the airport.) to strengthen the network and infrastructure, which creates the regional relations and strengthens the contact with neighboring provinces, which lays a foundation for the shortening of distance. Judging from the market access, using resources to transact markets and investments has been the direction of Inner Mongolia region and relevant policy supports can be easily got. But some industries which possess national features and local features still have entry barriers. From the product differences perspective, relying on the mineral resources, scarce non-ferrous metal resources, and the natural conditions of Inner Mongolia plateau, Inner Mongolia has created the unique resources industry chain (such as coal oil industry) and other new energy industry such as wind power. From the research perspective, although Inner Mongolia region has a technical breakthrough in resources industry, the research level is still relatively inferior. The non-resource industries, especially modern production service industries, whose development speed lag behind, can t form the interaction and symbiosis development pattern with resources industry. The resources industry is the main body of region economy which will undermine the economic growth mode transformation and sustainable development. The infrastructure construction of Inner Mongolia also needs further reasonable planning and strengthening. The above conditions form the economic development bottleneck of Inner Mongolia. 3 The Economic Development Engine of Inner Mongolia under the New Regional Economic Territory 3.1 Improving economic density, strengthening economic radiation and spillover effect Based on the consideration of Inner Mongolian economic development status and bottleneck, the key of economic development is to make the function orientation of the main body of different areas, relying on its main functions to make the key cities, relying on the central cities to develop economic circles, belts and for all regions making the Plate Mode separation positioning and coupling type link development. For the reasonable localization of main functions of each areas, we should not only consider the whole country's regional planning, fully exert the natural resources and policies advantages, but use the economic advantages of bordering provinces and cities, making sure the whole planning and function orientation of Inner Mongolia is embedded into the national strategic planning and form the interaction. The layout of main-function zones is relying on the layout of industry and enterprises linkage. Economic region layout should be constructed by using the main body function region as the main body and the sub-function region as supplementary layout. We should develop the industrial structure and belts by using the advantageous pillar industry as the leading factor, the high-new technologies, basic industries, new energy industries as supports, and interactive development of modern service industries. Under the constraints of economic structure and industry belts we should form the economic growth point of enterprises as micro drivers, building the development model of economic growth point to economic growth belt, and extending to the regionally economic development and forming the economic development linkage mechanism of the wholly regional layout planning-integration zone-the industrial innovation platform-enterprises driver. in Inner Mongolia. Thus we can reshape the economic structure and economic geography of the eastern, middle and western Inner Mongolia, forming the new regional 443

4 economic comprehensive linkage pattern including main function zone, industry belt and enterprise growth point. The realization of main function zone is in the prerequisite of central urban agglomerations creation. The construction of urban agglomerations could draw the experiences from domestic and foreign cities and regions development. We can make a city CBD, realizing the large-scale development through economic gathering, for example building the operation platform for some suitable gathering industry, such as production services. Since the Inner Mongolia region is long and narrow, with the cities decentralized, we could make the functional position for different cities, and sort out different function of urban agglomeration, and develop the Inner Mongolia regional economy like a development model of the multiple centrals and multiple spheres in Tokyo. This is the premise of the improvement of the regional economic density and shortening the distance. In fact, the integrated planning of Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos urban agglomeration is brewing, and the whole layout mode of regional economy the Three zones-two spheres-one belt pattern (Zhang GuoLiang, 2010) has also been explored. 3.2 Shortening the distance to promote regional economic development, through the gathering of the production and population The closer with developed markets, the more easily is driven by economy radiation function. Generally speaking, the developed markets are almost located in the main body function region and the central city. Thus, we should promote the course of urbanization, and improve the efficiency of urbanization. For Inner Mongolia, it is reasonable to make the further process of the resource-based products by relying on the existing strengths, realizing the extension of industrial chain and expanding the scale of factory to realize production scalization. Meanwhile, we should speed up the development of modern service industries which serve resources industry, then the interactive development of industrial and service could finally form, which can form the interaction between industries and service industries and shorten the distance effectively. The gathering of production needs the gathering of population as supports, either the equipment and introduction of senior personnel or the recruitment of ordinary workers, which is in the need of adaptation with the development of factory scales. Therefore, we should break through all sorts of restrictive policy, and adopt some encouraging measures to promote orderly population migration and accumulation, making this kind of economic spillover and scale beneficial for more people. The flowing and gathering of talents and labors could further promote the migration and accumulation of production, which does not only increase the economic density, improve the region s wealth creation ability, but also makes more people benefit from the spatial extension of employment. Meanwhile the population gathering expands and increases the purchasing power in the region. Another measure to shorten the distance is to accelerate infrastructure construction and accelerate transportation development, which could create better hardware conditions for talents, commodity flow, capital flow and information flow. 3.3 Breaking down policies barriers and implementing the regional integration policies to realize the regional economic development Improving density and shortening the distance is not only relying on the market forces, but also relying on the policy system of government, so as to decrease segmentation and speed up the local internal and external economic ties. We should implement the integration of regional economy according related policy orientation; adopt the unified system, connective infrastructure and the targeted intervention measures. We should improve the density, shorten the distance and reduce division in order to realize the integration of regional economy and balanced coordination development. The unified region system could shorten boundary, including the market boundary and distance. The linkage of infrastructures in different regions and the limited access of regional markets can accelerate both the inside and outside contact of regional economy (2009, World Bank). The prosperity of the main function zones and the central cities and the economic zone will bring economy higher degree of density, contributing to the 444

5 spillover of economic activity in surrounding areas, and realizing the regional economic development. In the level of external contact, we should take Introducing strategy. For example, with the rare earth resources advantages, we could depend on the decrease of export quotas to attract the immigration of relevant industries or enterprises. We can establish and upgrade the soft power of Inner Mongolia region s economic development, and introduce relevant industries to settle in Inner Mongolia. 4 Conclusion Wholly observing the economy of Inner Mongolia, we can conclude that its economic density needs to be enhanced, and the gap between regions still needs to be shortened and regional division remains to be weakened. In order to promote economic development of Inner Mongolia, firstly, economic and population density of the region should be improved, which can be achieved through the population growth and gathering of central cities and production scalization. One of the important indexes is urbanization rate and scale of various areas. Secondly, the distance should be shortened either through infrastructure construction and transportation conditions improvement, or through production or population mobility to reduce the transportation cost. Finally segmentation should be reduced, the economic border with surrounding areas should be cut, which lead us to enter the nationally unified market and even the world market for scalization and specialization. References [1]. World Bank. World Development Report 2009: Reshaping the World Economic Geography. Beijing :Tsinghua University Press,2010:1~121. (in Chinese) [2]. The Government Work Report of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in Chinese Communist News Net, (in Chinese) [3]. Duan Liping. The Total Population of Inner Mongolia Should Be Dominated in about Thousand By the End of the Twelfth Five-Year Planning. North Newspaper, Turn from Xinhua net, (in Chinese) [4]. Ren Yilong. Inner Mongolia Golden Triangle Trying to Rise For the National and Regional Development Strategies. (in Chinese) [5]. The Government Work Report of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in Chinese) [6]. Two of Fusion of Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos Will Set Sailing in This Year. Inner Mongolia Morning Paper, :50:08(in Chinese) 445