In September 1999, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China formally proposed that "the country must implement the strategy of developing the western re

In September 1999, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China formally proposed that "the country must implement the strategy of developing the western region." The key tasks to be carried out in the development of the western region are (

The main achievements of the Western Development Strategy

Since the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China formally proposed on September 22, 1999 that "the country must implement the Western Development Strategy" , and has formulated and implemented a series of policy measures with remarkable results.

First, the growth rate of fixed asset investment has accelerated. From 2000 to 2008, the average annual growth rate of fixed asset investment in the western region was 23.4%, which was 1.9 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate and 4.4 percentage points higher than the eastern region. From the perspective of fixed asset investment, the proportion of investment in basic fields such as agriculture, transportation, and water conservancy has continued to increase, from 20.39% in 1999 to 28.36% in 2007. Driven by investment and supported by national policies, transportation and communication facilities has been greatly improved. In 2007, the total highway mileage in the western region increased by 0.6 times compared with 1999, and the highway mileage increased by 4.96 times. In 2001, the penetration rate of telephones and mobile phones in the western region was only 9.10 units/100 people and 7.05 units/100 people. In 2007, it increased to 20.78 units/100 people and 32.68 units/100 people. Ecological construction has achieved great results, with the forest coverage rate increasing from 9.03% in 1999 to 14.4% in 2007. In recent years, sandstorms in the northern region have been significantly reduced, and the contribution of the western region is indispensable.

Second, the regional economy is experiencing rapid growth. Since the implementation of the Western Development Strategy, the growth rate of the Western Region's Gross Product (GRP) has accelerated year by year for eight consecutive years, rapidly increasing from 7.3% in 1999 to 14.5% in 2007. In 2008, affected by the financial crisis, the growth rate in the Western Region had has dropped, but is still as high as 12.4%, which is 0.5 and 1.1 percentage points higher than the national and eastern averages respectively. From 1999 to 2008, the average annual growth rate of GRP in the western region reached 11.4%, with the average growth rate from 2003 to 2008 reaching 13.2%, the fastest growth rate among the four major regions in the country. Judging from the situation of the western provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Guangxi and other provinces and autonomous regions have ranked among the top in economic development in the country. Among them, Inner Mongolia has ranked first in the country in terms of growth rate for seven consecutive years since 2002, and Sichuan Province’s economic aggregate has also ranked first in the country. In 2007, it exceeded one trillion yuan.

Third, regional industrialization is advancing rapidly. From 1999 to 2008, the proportion of industrial added value in the western region's total GDP increased rapidly from 32.9% to 41.1%, an increase of 8.2 percentage points, while during the same period, the eastern, northeastern and central regions only increased by 4.5, 4.5 and 6.4 percentage points respectively. percentage point. The proportion of the added value of the primary industry and the proportion of employment in the western region have continued to decline. The proportion of output value dropped from 23.8% in 1999 to 15.6% in 2008, a decrease of 8.2 percentage points. During the same period, the proportion of the added value of the primary industry in the country and the eastern region Only down 6.4 and 5.4 percentage points. The proportion of the added value of the secondary industry in the western region increased by 7.1 percentage points, which is also much higher than the increase in the eastern region and the whole country.

Fourth, residents’ living standards have improved significantly. After ten years of development, the economic and social development level of the western region has been significantly improved, the comprehensive development capabilities have been continuously enhanced, and people's living standards have been significantly improved. First of all, from the perspective of per capita GRP growth, from 1999 to 2008, the per capita GRP in the western region increased rapidly from 4,283 yuan to 15,951 yuan, and its relative level (based on the average of 100 for each region) increased from 60.7% to 63.8%. Secondly, urban and rural areas Residents' income has achieved rapid growth. From 1999 to 2008, the per capita net income of farmers in western China increased from 1,662 yuan to 3,525 yuan, an increase of 1.12 times; the per capita disposable income of urban residents increased from 5,431 yuan to 14,281 yuan, an increase of 1.63 times. Among them, from 2004 to 2008, the average annual growth rate of farmers' per capita net income in the western region reached 11.92%, exceeding that in the eastern region by 2.8 percentage points (the calculation of urban and rural residents' income data in the east and west in 2008 is based on the income data of urban and rural residents in each province) After weighting by the urban and rural population of each province, the weighted urban and rural resident income data of the eastern and western provinces and regions are summarized).

Fifth, the relative gap between the east and the west tends to narrow. Since the reform and opening up, the development gap between my country's east and west has experienced a process of first widening and then narrowing, with the turning point roughly appearing in 2003. It can be clearly seen from Figure 1 that since 2003, although the absolute gap in per capita GRP between the eastern and western regions is still widening, the relative gap has shown a gradual narrowing trend. In 2003, the per capita GRP in the western region was 63.0% lower than that in the eastern region. The coefficient dropped to 60.7% in 2005, 58.9% in 2007, and further dropped to 56.9% in 2008, which is 3.3 percentage points lower than the gap level in 1999. At the same time, after 2007, the relative income gap between urban and rural residents in the eastern and western regions also began to narrow. It can be said that in recent years, my country's regional economic development has undergone major changes, beginning to gradually transform from unbalanced growth to relatively balanced growth.

Sixth, the level of opening up to the outside world has been significantly improved.

From 1999 to 2008, the proportion of the western region’s imports and exports in the country also first declined and then increased, showing a “U”-shaped change (see Figure 2). This shows that in recent years, the western region has achieved initial results in developing an open economy, and its level of opening up to the outside world has been significantly improved. In 2008, the total import and export volume of the western region reached US$114.23 billion, accounting for 4.46% of the country's total import and export volume, an increase of 0.31 percentage points from 1999 and an increase of 1 percentage point from 2005. From 2000 to 2008, the export volume of the western region grew at an average annual rate of 26.4%, the highest among the four major regions in the country, and 1.6 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate. In 2008, the western region's export volume accounted for 4.5% of the country's total, which was 0.5 and 1.0 percentage points higher than in 1999 and 2004 respectively. The average annual growth rate of the total import and export volume of Xinjiang and Gansu has exceeded 30%, and the growth rate of import and export of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan and other provinces has exceeded the national average. From 1999 to 2007, the actual utilization of foreign direct investment in the western region increased from US$1.773 billion to US$5.050 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 16.13%, much higher than the average growth rate of 10.16% in the eastern region. The actual utilization of foreign direct investment in the western region as a proportion of the country has also increased rapidly in recent years, from 2.88% in 2004 to 3.45% in 2006, and to 4.92% in 2007.

The seventh is input-output Efficiency has been steadily improved. The implementation of the Western Development Program has provided unprecedented opportunities for the economic development of the western region. Characteristic and advantageous industries such as energy, heavy chemicals, tobacco, and agricultural product processing have achieved considerable development. Driven by these industries, the industrial input-output efficiency in the western region has been significantly improved. In 1999, most of the industrial economic efficiency indicators in the western region were lower than the national average, but by 2008, all indicators exceeded the national and eastern region levels. Among them, the average total asset contribution rate of industrial enterprises above designated size has reached 13.8%, 0.5 percentage points higher than that of the eastern region; the industrial cost and expense profit rate has reached 10.4%, exceeding the national and eastern region average levels by 5.3 and 5.6 percentage points respectively (total asset contribution rate And the cost and expense profit margin data are the arithmetic average of the national and western provinces and regions data).

Problems currently facing the development of the western region

It should be noted that the implementation of the development of the western region is a long-term and arduous historical task. There will still be a long way to go in order to realize the central government's goal of building a modern new western region with economic prosperity, social progress, life stability, ethnic unity, beautiful mountains and rivers, and people's prosperity. At present, the main problems facing the development of the western region are:

First, the infrastructure is weak and the soft environment needs to be improved. In the western region, especially rural areas, poverty-stricken areas, remote mountainous areas and border areas, infrastructure such as transportation, communications, medical and health, culture, tap water, and garbage disposal are still very weak. In particular, the gap between the information infrastructure and the eastern region is widening. . For example, the capacity of long-distance automatic exchanges, local telephone exchanges, mobile phone exchanges, the density of long-distance optical cable lines, and Internet broadband access ports per 1,000 people in the western region are far lower than the eastern and national averages. The investment soft environment in the western region also needs to be further improved. The specific manifestations are as follows: the degree of marketization in the western region is not high, the state-owned economy has a high proportion, the factor market, especially the capital market, is not fully developed, and the level of export-oriented economic development is still relatively low; the government is large and administrative The work efficiency is low, the approval process is cumbersome, and the service awareness is poor; etc.

Second, the development level is low and the industrial supporting facilities are imperfect. The extraction and raw material industries in the western region account for a large proportion, the industrial chain is short, and the depth of processing and comprehensive utilization are low. In 2007, the added value of high-tech industries in the western region accounted for only 5.6% of the added value of industries above designated size, 7.8 percentage points lower than that in the eastern region. At the same time, the development of producer services in western China lags behind, logistics costs are high, and industrial supporting facilities are imperfect. The logistics efficiency in the western region is significantly lower than that in the eastern region, and the GRP and secondary industry added value generated by unit freight volume are only about 50% of that in the eastern region. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises in western China have difficulty in financing, the corporate tax burden is heavy, and the operating environment is tight. Enterprises in the western region, especially small and medium-sized domestic enterprises, have difficulty in financing. The proportion of bank loans they can obtain is much lower than that in the eastern region. They have to use non-bank institutions to obtain the funds needed for enterprise development. There are many high-tax industries in the western region, the proportion of value-added tax is high, and the proportion of income tax is low. The central government takes away more tax revenue from the west through value-added tax, while leaving less tax revenue in the west through income tax and other tax sharing. In addition, the state has a high tax burden on the west. The tax benefits are mainly corporate income tax, resulting in a heavier tax burden in the western region.

Third, urbanization lags behind and the urban-rural dual structure is obvious. Not only is the level of urbanization in the western region low and development seriously lagging behind, but the gap with the eastern region has also been widening in recent years. In 2007, the urbanization rate in the western region was only 37.0%, 8.0 percentage points lower than the national average and 18.0 percentage points lower than the eastern region. From 2000 to 2007, the urbanization rate gap between the western and eastern regions widened from 7.2 percentage points to 18.0 percentage points. At the same time, the income gap between urban and rural residents in the western region is large, the dual structure is obvious, and the driving role of central cities is not strong.

In 2008, the ratio of the per capita disposable income of urban residents to the per capita net income of rural residents in eight provinces and autonomous regions in the west exceeded 3.5:1, among which the ratio in Yunnan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Gansu exceeded 4:1.

The fourth is Local financial resources are weak and public service capabilities are low. The western region's local financial strength, per capita disposable financial resources and public service capabilities are far lower than those in the eastern region. In 2008, the per capita local fiscal revenue in the western region was 1,413 yuan, which was only equivalent to 64.5% of the national average, 40.5% of the eastern region, and 11.3% of Shanghai. At present, western local governments, especially county and township governments** Public service capabilities are obviously insufficient, and the level of regional public services is low. There is still a big gap between the goal of equalizing basic public services required by the central government. At the same time, the efficiency of fiscal expenditure in the western region is low, and the role of fiscal expenditure in promoting economic growth and improving people's living standards is far less than that in the eastern region. From 1999 to 2008, the ratio of GRP growth rate to fiscal expenditure growth rate in the western region was only 0.7, that is, a 1 percentage point increase in fiscal expenditure could only drive GRP growth by 0.7 percentage points; the ratio of per capita GRP growth rate to per capita fiscal revenue growth rate is 0.69, that is, a 1 percentage point increase in per capita fiscal expenditure can only drive an increase of 0.69 percentage points in per capita GRP, which is lower than the eastern region's 1.0 and the national average of 0.82.

Fifth, resource consumption is high and the emissions of three wastes are large. Affected by resource endowment, industrial foundation and development stage, the scale of heavy chemical industry and raw material industry in the western region has expanded rapidly in recent years, with obvious characteristics of high resource consumption and large emissions of three wastes. In 2008, the energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP in the western region was as high as 1.81 tons of standard coal, and the energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value was as high as 3.43 tons of standard coal, respectively 63.9% and 36.7% higher than the national average, and 117% and 114.2% higher than the eastern region. .From the perspective of three waste emissions, in 2007, the industrial added value of the western region accounted for only 14.8% of the country's total, but the industrial wastewater, industrial waste gas and industrial solid waste discharged accounted for 22.5%, 26.9% and 56.1% of the country's total respectively. The industrial unit in the western region Emissions of value-added and three wastes are also much higher than the national average. In 2007, the western region discharged 295,000 tons of wastewater, 556 million standard cubic meters of industrial waste gas, and 356.86 tons of industrial solid waste per 100 million yuan of industrial added value, which were respectively equivalent to 1.72 times, 2.37 times, and 46 times that of the eastern region.

Thoughts on further promoting the development of the western region

Currently, my country's regional economy has entered an important turning point, which provides a good basis for further comprehensive and in-depth promotion of the development of the western region in the future. opportunities. In the new era, we should adhere to the overall idea of ??"comprehensive advancement, scientific development, east-west interaction, and accelerated transformation" to unswervingly further comprehensively and in-depth promote the implementation of the Western Development Strategy and promote the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable economic and social development of the western region. To this end, on the basis of continuing to improve infrastructure and ecological environment construction, we must focus on the following tasks:

First, accelerate the development of characteristic and advantageous industries. It is necessary to further vigorously promote the development of characteristic and advantageous industries in various regions, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries with high and new technologies, continue to develop and expand resource-based characteristic and advantageous industries such as energy and chemical industry, important mineral development and processing industry, characteristic agriculture, animal husbandry and processing industry, and support Non-resource-based modern advantageous industries such as equipment manufacturing and high-tech industries shall actively undertake industrial transfers from the eastern region, cultivate and develop emerging characteristic advantageous industries, and vigorously promote the development of modern service industries such as tourism and modern logistics. At the same time, we must actively cultivate the industrial chain economy, extend the industrial chain, increase the depth of processing and comprehensive utilization, improve the industrial supporting system, promote the establishment of a number of internationally competitive characteristic and advantageous industrial bases and industrial parks, and promote the characteristic and advantageous industries to scale. , develop in the direction of clustering and modernization, and provide solid industrial support for the development of the western region.

The second is to vigorously promote the optimization of space layout. It is necessary to coordinate urban and rural development, accelerate the pace of urbanization, vigorously promote the construction of new rural areas, promote the extension of urban infrastructure to rural areas, and build a new development pattern of urban-rural interaction, urban-rural interaction, and integrated development. At the same time, on the basis of continuing to focus on the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing, Guanzhong-Tianshui, and Beibu Gulf economic zones, we will actively cultivate a number of new growth poles, including the Hohhot-Baotou-E city agglomeration, the city agglomeration along the Yellow River, and the central Yunnan city agglomeration. It is necessary to intensify the reform of the household registration system, promote the coordinated agglomeration of population and industry in cities and towns, especially urban agglomerations, promote the implementation of ecological immigration projects in ecologically fragile areas, and coordinate the population distribution, industrial layout and resource and environmental carrying capacity of the western region.

The third is to actively build a new open pattern. Actively guide foreign investment, coastal enterprises and development zones to move westward, and establish a number of demonstration zones to undertake industrial transfers relying on transportation trunk lines, large and medium-sized cities and industrial parks. At the same time, it is necessary to further open up the connection channels between the west, east, central and northeastern regions and with neighboring countries, speed up the construction of highways along the western border, vigorously promote the opening up of the western border areas, strengthen international river development and sub-regional cooperation, and rely on existing border port cities and border economic cooperation zones, establish a number of border free trade zones or special economic zones, and build a new pattern of opening up in the western region.

The fourth is to continue to improve basic public services.

Further increase the intensity of central fiscal transfer payments and increase the proportion of equalized transfer payments to enhance the public service capabilities of local governments in the western region, improve the level of public service services in the western region, and effectively promote the equalization of basic public services. It is necessary to optimize the allocation of educational resources in the western region, further consolidate the work of "universal education", accelerate the development of vocational education and skills training, comprehensively improve the quality of higher education, and strive to improve the quality of all people. Further strengthen the construction of scientific and technological innovation capabilities in the western region, improve the level of public cultural and sports services, establish and improve public health and basic medical service systems, and improve the social emergency rescue system and rescue system.

The fifth is to improve the national support policy system. It is necessary to change the past GSP method and implement targeted differentiation for different types of areas such as western central cities, resource-rich areas, old industrial bases, poverty-stricken areas, and border areas in accordance with the principle of "differentiated treatment and classified guidance." To optimize the national support policy to effectively improve the implementation effect of the policy. It is necessary to adopt various policies and measures to actively support the economic and social development of ethnic minority areas, poverty-stricken areas, old revolutionary base areas and border areas in the west. At the same time, it is necessary to establish and improve a regional ecological compensation mechanism for restricted and prohibited development areas in the west.