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Yangtze River development strategy aims to boost economic growth

The Yangtze River is China's mother river. The development of the Yangtze River economic belt must be cautious and farsighted.

The State Council published its guideline on the construction of the Yangtze River economic belt through building the golden waterway last week.

Unlike other similar regional development strategies, like the Xijiang River economic belt plan of Guangdong province and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the Yangtze River strategy is not submitted by any single local government, but a result of the central authority's initiative actions.

Premier Li Keqiang conducted his field research about the feasibility of the plan earlier this year in his upstream inspection along the middle reach of the river.

This is one of the largest national economic development plans in terms of the area, population and economy it involves. More than 40 percent of China's economy and population in 11 provincial-level regions connected by the river will constitute a new backbone for the Chinese economy, according to the plan.

This plan is noteworthy given the mounting pressure for economizing in China's painful restructuring, as it signals the direction of the central government's economic work.

With green lights from the central government, the foreseeable huge investment in infrastructure construction to expand and improve the waterway and harbors along the main stream and branches of the Yangtze River will effectively boost economic growth in relevant regions.

This is to pay an overdue historical debt as well. The investment, if well spent, will greatly modernize the most important waterway in China that has not been upgraded through a national action plan. Water power dams, bridges and silting on the riverbed have seriously restricted the waterway's transportation capacity.

By 2020, a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation system will be completed in the Yangtze River economic belt, the plan says. Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing will become three regional logistic centers in the new system.

Keenly aware of the central government's vigilance to blind investment, local governors become more cautious while approaching the national project.

Some "highly operational" construction plans on a railway and harbor along the river have been given to the central government, Qin Zunwen, deputy director of Hubei Academy of Social Sciences told the 21st Century Business Herald.

The plan is more than that. The purpose of upgrading transportation is to pave the way for the relocation of industries from the better-off river mouth to the middle and upper reach of Yangtze, reduce homogeneous competition among the provinces and promote a more rational distribution of productive factors across the vast region.

Along the river, a new Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway and highway overland transportation system will be completed at the same time.

The connectivity of Nanjing, Hefei, Wuhan and Chongqing on the north wing of the river, and Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Changsha, Guiyang and Kunming on the south wing of the river will be great improved with the land transportation system.

The flow of labor forces from the middle reach of the river to the lower reach will be smoother. Tourism, service sectors and logistics will face a golden opportunity to develop in the increasingly networked five city clusters along the river, which have been geographically cut from each other by tributary streams and mountain ridges since ancient times.

Because of the north-south railway system formed since the 19th century, cities along the Yangtze River usually have more connection with the cities to its north and south. The Yangtze River economic belt will change the scenario.

But there are challenges too. Prevalent protectionism among provincial and city governments in the region may be the biggest barrier to improve connectivity. For most of the history, local governors are more likely to deem the 11 provincial regions as competitors than cooperators. This mindset is hard to die.

The regional development of the whole belt, especially the relocation of industries and distribution of production factors, entails close collaboration and effective communication.

There should be a coordinating mechanism for the authorities in the region to balance interests of different places.

Pollution and ecology degradation is another concern. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are among the most polluted areas in China, if not the world. The relocation of industries may become a new round of relocation of pollutants to the upper reach of the river, where ecology is delicately balanced, under the acquiescence of the authorities of the poorer places for economic growth.

Last but not least, some dams and bridges over the rivers built not long ago have already hindered the transportation development, and affected the environment of the Yangtze River. The central authority should draw lessons from these problems and avoid making the new projects a potential obstacle for the future development.

With the coming of capitals, the authority must conduct strict supervision over the mining of nonferrous metal in the middle and upper reach of the rivers, and avoid transplanting the "pollution first and clean-up later" growth model.

liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

Shanghai is defined as a leading city in the Yangtze River economic belt in the State Council's new guideline. Gao Erqiang / China Daily