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Regional gaps causing conern
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Hu Zheye
THE economic gaps between regions in South China's Guangdong Province are growing, a Hong Kong Commercial Daily report said recently.
If no effective measures were taken to address this problem, the economic development of the whole province will be hindered, warned the report, citing comments made by several deputies to the provincial People's Congress.
Economic powerhouse
Best known as a booming province in South China, Guangdong Province has an amazingly good economic record. Last year, Guangdong reached a GDP of 950.6 billion yuan (US$115 billion) which accounts for over one tenth of the country's total, surpassing Singapore and only slightly behind Israel.
Guangdong is China's biggest foreign trade province. Its total foreign trade volume accounts for about 40 per cent of China's total and is equivalent to the export volume of the entire nation of Russia, and double that of India.
Statistics also show that the savings deposits in the province by banking institutions totalled 1.7 trillion yuan last year, accounting for 20 per cent of the country's total, while the savings deposits by urban and rural residents reached one trillion yuan, accounting for one sixth of the country's total.
Rich and richer
Ironically, behind all these impressive figures lie the fact that the economic gaps between different regions in Guangdong Province are growing. The Pearl River Delta region is moving towards realizing modernization while the eastern, western and northern parts of the province are falling farther behind the rich Pearl River Delta region.
Guangdong's widening regional economic gap can have serious consequences upon the pace of industrialization and urbanization of the whole province, the report quotes deputies as saying.
The deputies attribute the gap to different regional GDP growth rates which were in turn mainly caused by the so-called “gradient development policy" pursued by the provincial government since mid-1980s in the Pearl River Delta area. To boost economic growth in the region, the government granted a series of preferential policies which gave the region advantages in infrastructure investment and personnel disposition. As a result, the regional gap grew.
In 1999, all the cities located in the Pearl River Delta region with the exception of Shantou City posted a per capita GDP higher than the provincial average. Meanwhile, all the cities which recorded a per capita GDP lower than the provincial average are situated in the "neglected" regions.
The 10 cities of the Pearl River Delta region only account for 30 per cent of the province's total area, but their combined GDP accounts for nearly 80 per cent of the province's total.
Pressing task
The so-called “gradient development policy" has played a decisive part in influencing the economic growth rates of Guangdong's different regions, the deputies said.
Effective measures must be taken to balance regional economic growth, deputies said. They urged the provincial government to give bigger support to the western, eastern and northern regions during its 10th Five-Year Plan period, noting that the growing regional gap can have grave consequences.
The best option for narrowing the economic gap is not to limit the growth of the advanced regions but to help the underdeveloped develop faster, the report said, quoting deputies.
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