CRI听力: Economists Say 2nd Decade of Western Development Needs a Differentiated Approach

A new plan for the country's western development project in this decade is in its final discussion and awaiting approval by the State Council.

The project has succeeded quite enormously in reversing the development imbalance between costal and inland China with regard to infrastructural construction and environmental protection. But some economists argue the project needs a more differentiated approach in its second decade.



Zhao Kun brings us more.

Spark & Somab is a company that produces machine tools in northwestern China's Gansu Province. Li Weiqian, its chairman of the board, says 10 years ago, the company used to have to turn off all its street lights in the middle of every month to reduce its electric bills.

"We had over 2,000 people at that time, but we only made about 20 million yuan annually. That meant our workers could only get less than 2,000 yuan per person every year."

Now the company has merged with a foreign company and planed to be listed on the stock market.

The turnaround may be thanks in part to the company's location in Tianshui on the frontlines of China's Western Development project.

The project aims to boost local economies and reverse the imbalance between the poor West and wealthy costal areas in eastern and southern China.

It covers more than 70 percent of China's total territory. But the average GDP the west is 60 percent less than in the eastern costal areas.

The central government has advanced the project non-stop since 2000. Most investment has gone to infrastructural construction.

Right before the second-phase plan is about to be handed to the State Council, Zhang Baotong, an economist at the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, suggests policymakers consider a more differentiated approach towards the less-developed area rather than setting a target too high or pushing the economic transform too quickly.

"The western region has a few more industrial areas indeed, which naturally can do a lot to contribute to the nationwide transformation of the economic growth pattern. But for those far less-developed parts, cutting the labor-intensive industries abruptly may not be a good choice."(www.hXen.com)

Some of the country's heavy industries are concentrated in the west. But Zhang Baotong points out that an imbalance also exists inside the region, which is not very different from the imbalance between China's costal and inland areas. Many people there do not even use modern agricultural methods and machinery.

"One strategy which I think should be inherited from the last decade is focusing the project on those industrial centers first rather than covering too many cities at the same time."

Zhang says the same rationale should be applied to education and upgrading the energy infrastructure in the West. He says vocational education, for example, should be prioritized first to increase local employment and income.

Zhao Kun, CRI news.