The central part of the country will speed up its rise, and the burden on these two provinces will be heavier

Time Weekly

2024-06-06 19:55Posted on the official account of Guangdong Times Weekly

Source of this article: Times Weekly Author: Li Yiwen

After 20 years, the central region has once again ushered in new opportunities for development.

On May 27, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting to review the "Several Policies and Measures to Promote the Accelerated Rise of the Central Region in the New Era". The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to always closely follow the strategic positioning of the central region as an important grain production base, energy raw material base, modern equipment manufacturing and high-tech industrial base and comprehensive transportation hub, and strive to promote various key tasks to promote the rise of the central region and make new major breakthroughs.

In fact, since 2004, when the "rise of the central region" was first proposed in the central government's work report, the GDP of the central region has risen nearly 10 times in the past 20 years. In 2023, the GDP of the central region will account for 21.6% of the country's total.

In the 20 years since the rise of the central region, there is no doubt about the achievements made.

Source: Picture Worm Creative

But at present, the predicament faced by the six central provinces is also real.

Affected by the changes in the economic environment at home and abroad, the economic growth rate of the central region, which has been "soaring and advancing", has slowed down significantly, and the internal tends to be differentiated. In 2023, among the six central provinces, only Hubei and Anhui provinces will outperform the national level in economic growth. In the first quarter of 2024, except for Hubei, the growth rate of the remaining five provinces will be lower than the national level.

In the first quarter, among the six central provinces, only Hubei's economic growth rate outperformed the national level Source: Jiangxi Provincial Information Center

Therefore, in the deployment of the rise of the central region in this round, "acceleration" has become the focus. At the previous symposium on the rise of the central region, the relevant expressions of "accelerating the pace" appeared frequently. In the case of tight time, heavy tasks and limited resources, how can the central region accelerate its rise?

Shanxi's coal dependence

At present, Shanxi is the province with a relatively weak economy among the six central provinces.

From the perspective of economic volume, Shanxi's GDP in 2023 will be about 2.57 trillion yuan, ranking last among the six central provinces, with a difference of nearly 650 billion yuan from Jiangxi, which ranks fifth. At the same time, Shanxi is also the only province among the six central provinces with a GDP of less than 3 trillion yuan, and it will take some time for the province to cross the 3 trillion yuan threshold, even according to the 5.5% growth target set by Shanxi in early 2023.

Henan and Hubei, both in the central region, have set off towards the goal of 6 trillion yuan.

Shanxi's weakness is not only reflected in the size of the economy, its industrial structure is also relatively simple, and the regional economy is still highly dependent on "coal" support, resulting in the province's economic development is easily disturbed by external factors, and the economy fluctuates greatly.

This is also reflected in Shanxi's recent economic data.

In 2023, Shanxi's economy will still maintain a growth rate of 5.0%, which is still lower than the national level (5.2%), but the difference between the two is only 0.2 percentage points. And from the data point of view, Shanxi's economic performance is also relatively stable, the growth rate in the first three quarters was 5.0%, 4.7% and 4.5% respectively, although there is a downward trend, but the fluctuations are not drastic, and there is also a rebound in the fourth quarter.

Taiyuan, Shanxi (Source: Picture Worm Entrepreneurship)

However, due to the impact of coal production reduction and the continuous decline in international coal prices, Shanxi's economy will "brake sharply" in the first quarter of 2024. In the first quarter, Shanxi's actual growth rate was only 1.2%, the lowest among the 31 provinces in the same period.

Not only that, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, Shanxi is also the only province in the country whose economy has shrunk, with a total economic output of more than 40 billion yuan less than the same period last year, with a nominal growth rate of -7.4%.

In fact, Shanxi has a relatively clear understanding of the predicament of its own industrial structure for a long time. As early as 2006, slogans such as economic "decoalization" and industrial transformation were proposed. In 2021, Shanxi will launch 14 strategic emerging industry plans at one time, striving to realize the transformation from "one coal dominance" to "eight pillars of optimism".

Shanxi's transformation efforts have also achieved certain results. According to Xinhua News Agency, in 2021, Shanxi's installed capacity of new and renewable energy accounted for 34.3%; Energy consumption per unit of GDP can be reduced by 3.2% for the whole year; The added value of industrial strategic emerging industries grew at an average annual rate of 7.8 percent, and in terms of industry, Jinnan New Special Effect Drug Base and Jinzhong New Energy Automobile Industry have achieved full development.

However, due to the influence of various factors such as guaranteed energy supply, Shanxi's economy is still highly correlated with "coal".

Relevant data show that in 2020, the added value of Shanxi's coal industry still accounted for 52.6% of the above-scale industries, and coal output has also reached a new high in recent years. In 2022, according to the Shanxi Provincial Statistical Yearbook, 31.7% of the province's GDP composition came from the mining industry.

Transformation needs to be addressed urgently. In the 2024 Shanxi Provincial Government Work Report, the word "transformation" is mentioned 17 times. This not only reflects Shanxi's determination to transform, but also reflects the arduousness of transformation to a certain extent.

"We need to give some external support." In the view of Ye Qing, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and former deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, the relatively single economic structure and the slow upgrading of traditional industries have made it difficult for the economy of the six central provinces represented by Shanxi to keep up with the current complex and changeable economic environment. The slowdown in growth will further exacerbate the difficulty of industrial construction and upgrading, which will then drag down the development speed.

Ye Qing told the Times Weekly reporter that although the central region, including Shanxi, is actively promoting economic transformation, in today's global economic environment, to accelerate the rise of the can't just rely on a single fight, especially in the central region involving mainland food security, energy security and other premise, it is also necessary to give a certain degree of coordination at the macro level.

The report of the 12th Party Congress of Shanxi Province mentioned that "for transformation and development, it is necessary to combine the practice of internal strength with the help of external forces". Earlier, researchers from the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences also mentioned in an interview with the media that there are difficulties and constraints in Shanxi's transformation and development, and in addition to its own efforts, it also needs external support.

Hubei is the most optimistic

Among the six central provinces, Hubei is one of the new engines in the central region that the outside world is more optimistic about.

In terms of economic volume alone, although Hubei's GDP is lower than Henan's, it has long been in the seventh position in the country and second in the central part of the country, but the recent development momentum of Hubei is significantly stronger than that of Henan. In the past 10 years, Hubei's economic growth rate has only been lower than the national level in 2020, and in the rest of the years, its economic growth rate has been ahead of the national level by about 0.8-2 percentage points. In the first quarter of this year, Hubei grew by 6.1 percent, becoming the only province in the central region to outperform the national level (5.3 percent).

The strong industrial foundation is one of the driving forces for Hubei's economy to continue to develop.

Taking the automobile industry integrating technology, labor and capital as an example, since 1969, the "second automobile" landed in Shiyan, Hubei Province, after more than 50 years of development, Hubei Province has gathered 25 vehicle enterprises and more than 1,600 parts enterprises, becoming one of the provinces with the highest degree of automobile industrialization and the most complete industrial chain in China.

For the transformation and upgrading of the industry, Hubei's "sense of smell" is also extremely sensitive. As early as 2009, Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, took the lead in shouting the slogan of becoming the "capital of new energy vehicles". In 2022, Hubei's "Wuxiang Shisui" automobile cluster was selected as the third batch of advanced manufacturing clusters in the country, becoming one of the three national automobile industry clusters in the mainland, and its output value ranked first in the country.

Source: Picture Worm Creative

According to data from the Hubei Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, in the first quarter of this year, the output of new energy vehicles in Hubei increased by 109%, 81 percentage points higher than the national level. In November last year, Hubei released the implementation plan for the transformation and development of the automobile industry, which also proposed that by 2025, an important new energy vehicle production base in the country will be built, and the output of new energy vehicles will account for more than 40% of the total automobile output in the province.

In addition, Hubei has also made a layout for the unmanned driving technology that is the most core competitiveness of the new energy vehicle industry in the future, for example, Wuhan is the first in the country to release a pilot policy for fully unmanned commercial operation, and has become the world's largest autonomous driving operation service area.

Hubei's economy will depend on its greater dependence in the future because of its advantages in the concentration of scientific and educational resources and its location.

As a matter of fact, when talking about "accelerating the rise of the central region," the relevant central meeting stressed that to promote the rise of the central region and make new major breakthroughs, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of the concentration of scientific and educational resources and the advantages of its location. And these are precisely Hubei's advantages.

From the perspective of teaching and scientific advantages, there are 6 "985" universities and 20 "double first-class" universities in the six central provinces, of which Hubei Province alone occupies 2 "985" universities and 7 "double first-class" universities, accounting for one-third of the central region. In addition, Wuhan is also the fifth science and technology innovation center in the country, and at the beginning of its construction, it had the mission of "supporting the central region, radiating the whole country, and integrating into the world" as an innovative growth pole.

Not to mention the location advantage. Because of its unique location connecting the east to the west, connecting the south to the north, and connecting the river to the sea, Hubei has always been known as the "thoroughfare of nine provinces". However, Hubei is not satisfied with this, and the "multimodal transport" of highways, railways, waterways, and air roads is promoting Hubei to leapfrog from the "thoroughfare of nine provinces" to the "thoroughfare of nine continents".

A coordinated development mechanism needs to be established

The deployment of the central government on "accelerating the rise of the central region" is undoubtedly a new opportunity for the economic development of the six central provinces. However, under the limited support resources, in the face of the central region, which has a large difference in economic development but needs to accelerate its rise, where should the policy support be tended?

In this regard, Ye Qing believes that the dilemma of a single economic structure and the slow pace of industrial transformation is not only in Shanxi Province, but also in the six central provinces and even some provinces in the east and west. "The central region has a relatively good resource endowment and a strong industrial base, but its resources are relatively scattered, and the per capita resources are slightly insufficient.

Taking educational resources as an example, there are more than 700 colleges and universities in the entire central region, and 30% of the students in the country are enrolled. However, the per capita expenditure is not only significantly lower than that of the eastern region, but even far from that of the western region.

According to public data from the Ministry of Education, the per capita funding investment in the central region in 2022 will be 17,725.22 yuan, far behind the eastern coastal region (24,757.59 yuan), the western region (29,341.17 yuan) and the national average (22,205.41 yuan), about 29% lower than the eastern region, about 42% lower than the western region, and 20% lower than the national average.

Among them, the per capita funding of Hunan Province and Henan Province was 15,019.33 yuan and 15,353.80 yuan respectively, ranking second to last and third from the bottom in the country.

Source: Picture Worm Creative

In order to accelerate the rise, in Ye Qing's view, the six central provinces need to establish an effective coordinated development mechanism, have a sense of the overall situation, sincerely share high-quality resources, and sincerely build a high-quality industrial chain. "At the same time, an integrated interest compensation mechanism can also be established, and under the principle of fairness and justice, necessary mutually beneficial and win-win arrangements can be made both internally and externally."

"In addition to integrated and coordinated development, the construction of a grassroots business environment is also the key to the rapid rise of the central region." Li Xuchao, an associate professor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University and vice president of the Central China Development Research Institute, told the Times that the central region's own resource endowment does not lag behind other regions, and the main gap between the current and other developed regions may be mainly concentrated in the construction of the grassroots business environment.

In fact, at the 13th Central China Investment and Trade Expo Central Investment Promotion Conference held on June 1, the relevant leaders of the six provinces in the central region all mentioned "business environment" and "innovation and transformation" side by side. Prior to this, the six provinces also took the continuous promotion of the construction of an international business environment as one of the important starting points, and deployed and issued relevant policy documents.

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