Guideline for central region seen catalyzing economic growth

Thursday's decision to promote high-quality development in central region－Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces－will help promote more balanced development, and inject strong impetus into the nation's economic growth and the new "dual-circulation" development pattern in the long run, said officials and experts on Friday.

The country's top economic regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission, said the coming high-quality development in the central region will be conductive to fostering coordinated regional development, developing a modern industrial system and building a strong domestic market in the nation.

The central region covers about 10 percent of the country's land area. It accounted for more than 22 percent of the national GDP in 2019 and has nearly 27 percent of China's population, official data showed.

"The central region... has a complete industrial system", and leads the nation in fields like equipment manufacturing and biomedicine, said the NDRC's Department of Regional Economy in an interview to People's Daily.

"However, its industrial structure has long been 'heavy', and high-quality products and services are in low supply in the region. And its ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP hasn't reached the national average."

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the national R&D expenditure-to-GDP ratio was 2.4 in 2020.

According to the NDRC, boosting high-quality development will drive innovation-fueled transformation and upgrading of industries in the region, further optimize its industrial structures, improve the quality and efficiency of growth and its core competitiveness, and create new growth drivers for the nation.

The central region, with a permanent population of 370 million, has huge market potential, given the room to narrow the gap between the central and eastern regions, in terms of economic and social development, the NDRC said.

"The future development of the region will boost consumer spending, unlock the potential for investment, thus accelerating the establishment of a complete system of domestic demand."

The new guideline, released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, requires building a modern industrial system backed by advanced manufacturing, enhancing innovation capability in key fields, expanding high-level opening-up, fostering green development and improving business environment.

By 2025, breakthroughs will be made in upgrading quality and performance and making growth drivers more robust.

By 2035, the region should put in place a modern economic system, accomplish socialist modernization and make substantial headway in common prosperity, the guideline document stated.

Jia Ruoxiang, senior researcher at the Institute of Spatial Planning and Regional Economy, which is part of the NDRC, said he believed accelerating the development of the central region is a key component of China's ongoing efforts to ensure well-balanced development of its regional economies. Various regions' quick rise will strongly boost the socialist modernization in the country, he said.

Jia also said the new guideline aims to boost innovation-driven, high-quality and green development of the region. The central region needs to build on its significance which stems from its status as China's major grain-producing base, a key production base of raw materials, a big source of energy, a center of modern equipment manufacturing complete with a high-tech industrial base, and a key transportation hub.

"The central region will play a key role in boosting domestic circulation and serve as a strategic link between the domestic and international markets," he said.

After years of development, the central region has been tasked with the new mission to pioneer China's high-quality development and socialist modernization, said Fan Hengshan, an economist of regional development studies and former deputy secretary-general of the NDRC.

"The central region needs to make a big push to optimize its industrial structures, with a key focus on building a modern industrial system backed by advanced manufacturing," he said.

More efforts should be made to boost the development of strategic emerging industries, effectively promote the modernization of the industrial chain, actively undertake the transfer of emerging industries and promote the efficient flow of resource factors and optimal allocation of resources, he said.