Download The Regional Economic New Territory: the Features and the Engine

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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, 010051
[email protected]
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
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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
（
，
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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 118.3 million-square-kilometers
area. By the end of 2010, its population will be about 24450 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).
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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
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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
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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
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[3]. Duan Liping. The Total Population of Inner Mongolia Should Be Dominated in about 25200
Thousand By the End of the “Twelfth Five-Year Planning”. North Newspaper, Turn from Xinhua
net, 2011-02-24(in Chinese)
[4]. Ren Yilong. Inner Mongolia “Golden Triangle” Trying to Rise For the National and Regional
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