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To boosting the development in the western part of the country,
invigorate the old industrial bases in northeast China, promote the
rise of the middle part, and encourage an even quicker pace of
growth in the eastern part -- This is a new pattern of economic
growth Premier Wen Jiabao describes in his government work
report.
Economists and researchers call it a "road map" to a balanced
development among all regions.
"This is the first time since the People's Republic of China was
founded in 1949 for the government to put a harmonious development
of regional economies on a plane of unprecedented strategic
importance in a bid to narrow the enlarging regional disparities,"
said Li Shantong, a researcher of the Development Research Center
of the State Council.
The government is working on specific zoning and specific
regional policies and plans to make them an important part of the
11th five-year plan, according to an official with the State
Development and Reform Commission.
"The zoning will not be based on geographical locations and the
four major regions will be subdivided into a number of blocks or
groups of blocks where different policies would apply", said the
official.
Regional policies will be divided into two major categories: one
is of encouragement and the other is of assistance. The former
applies to developed areas which have the ability of self
development, self investment and self accumulation; the latter
applies to ecologically fragile less-developed and backward areas
with feeble economic foundations which the government will support
through investment, tax concession, distribution and transfer of
payments.
The western China development drive has yielded initial
results,with the growth difference between the eastern and western
parts being narrowed from five percentage points in the 1990s to
0.88 percentage points in 2002.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)
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