Stories of High-Quality Development | Delivering good results for coordinated regional development

Regions serve as key platforms for the country to allocate resources, plan industrial layouts, and organize economic activities. China is a vast and populous country with remarkable differences in natural resource endowment among its various regions, and there are disparities in development foundations across regions. Therefore, promoting coordinated regional development has always been a major challenge, and it is an essential requirement for economic prosperity.

China's economy has shifted from a period of rapid growth to one of high-quality development, placing new demands on coordinated regional development, said Hou Yongzhi, former director-general of the Development Strategy and Regional Economy Department at the Development Research Center of the State Council, during "Stories of High-Quality Development," a People's Daily video series.

Coordinated regional development should not simply mean requiring all regions to reach the same economic level, Hou said. Instead, the country must follow a path of appropriate division of labor, complementarity, and high-quality development.

Central, local governments jointly draw up blueprint for coordinated regional development

"When people move to a different city for work and life, will their salary remain the same? What about their children's education? Can the medical resources keep up?" These cross-provincial livelihood concerns are widely shared by the public. How can these problems be solved?

"Before I decided to leave Beijing for the neighboring Xiong'an New Area, my family and friends urged me to think carefully, because they worried that in Xiong'an, I might not enjoy the same benefits as in the capital city of Beijing. However, after I arrived in Xiong'an, I found that my social security was seamlessly transferred, and my housing provident fund was quickly recognized across regions. I went from commuting across regions to living in the same urban area where I worked, making balancing both family and work much easier, which feels really great," said Song Fazhi, product manager of China Mobile Xiong'an Information & Communication Technology Co., Ltd.

"During the coordinated advancement of the Xiong'an New Area across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, we worked on the public welfare and livelihood guarantees and the overall planning in parallel. Under the central government's guidance, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have implemented cross-regional policy coordination, service sharing, and resource allocation to ensure that relocated organizations and personnel can enjoy 'move-in readiness,' and settle seamlessly, stay sustainably, and thrive assuredly in Xiong'an," said Liu Jia, deputy director of the Reform and Development Bureau of Xiong'an New Area.

Liu added that the successive release of documents closely related to the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has convinced more and more people like Song Fazhi to put down roots in new places.

To achieve high-quality development in a single region, we must properly handle the relationship between the central government and local governments. While embracing major strategies for regional development, regions should discard a silo mentality, embrace a mindset that treats the nation as one integrated whole, and identify the local region's role and mission within the national strategy for coordinated regional development and major regional strategies. They should actively serve and integrate into national development. With major regions moving forward together, we can create a more balanced and coordinated development pattern and expand the space for domestic circulation, achieving greater progress in pursuing high-quality development, Hou noted.

Complementary advantages among regions enhance industrial efficiency

River systems and mountains serve as ecological corridors for the reproduction and survival of organisms. They are not restricted by administrative divisions and need to be protected by neighboring provinces.

"People who grow up by the river have a special connection to the Yangtze River. Since I was a child, my father told me that every plant and tree along the riverbank, and every fish and shrimp in the water, are gifts bestowed upon us by this mother river. Safeguarding the Yangtze River is a seed planted in my heart by my elders," said Cheng Wei, a member of the Ma'anshan Fishery Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment in Anhui province.

How can the three cities break through regional limitations and jointly protect the Yangtze finless porpoises throughout their entire life cycle?

On Oct. 24, 2022, Ma'anshan city collaborated with Nanjing and Zhenjiang cities in Jiangsu Province to formulate a decision on strengthening protection of the Yangtze finless porpoises.

"With the common goal of protecting finless porpoises and building an ecological civilization, our three cities have worked closely together, and the fishery law enforcement departments have also transformed from peers into a family. Now, the scale and density of fish resources in the Ma'anshan section of the Yangtze River have reached 1.5 times and 2 times their pre-fishing-ban levels, respectively. Rare aquatic creatures, including the Yangtze finless porpoises, are frequently appearing," said Cheng. Safeguarding the "smiles" of the finless porpoises is not only about protecting the Yangtze River, but also about safeguarding the future of high-quality regional development.

"In coordinated regional development, 'cooperation' is the prerequisite to leveraging each region's comparative advantages," noted Hou. He added that the 2024 Central Economic Work Conference emphasized that industrial collaboration between the eastern, central, western and northeastern regions should be deepened, while the maritime and bay area economies should be actively boosted. To promote mutual support between eastern and western regions, coordinated development between southern and northern regions, and integrated coordination between coastal and inland regions, relevant regions and departments should make efforts to eliminate deep-rooted institutional barriers, enable smoother allocation of resources across regions, and continually enhance balance and coordination in regional development by complementing each other's advantages.

Spillover from growth poles reduces regional economic disparities

In Shenzhen, every inch of land is precious and supply is becoming increasingly scarce. Meanwhile, Shanwei in eastern Guangdong is urgently seeking development and has vast untapped land resources. How can coordinated development be achieved between these two cities, just over 100 kilometers apart?

"Our answer is to explore and develop the enclave economic model—combining Shanwei's land resource advantages with Shenzhen's high-quality industries, technologies, talent, and markets, and cooperating in large-scale industry to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results," explained Wu Qubo, secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

The booming industry has also brought vitality. The actual managed population of the cooperation zone has more than doubled from less than 60,000 at the beginning to nearly 140,000 in 2024. From 2018 to 2024, the cooperation zone has seen steady growth, with its regional GDP increasing from 3.9 billion yuan to 24.2 billion yuan, with an average annual growth of 35.6 percent.

According to Hou, the "enclave economy" is an important form of economic cooperation that promotes coordinated regional development. In practice, it has played a positive role in narrowing regional economic gaps and achieving complementary advantages between regions. At present, the practice of the "enclave economy" is continuously expanding in China and is taking many forms. The "enclave economy," led by cooperation between governments, relocates industries in "packages." It not only boosts economic growth in the region, but also strengthens local governance and creates a joint force in the drive for modernization.

"Shenzhen's surplus production capacity has uncovered new growth opportunities, expanding into Shanwei and the surrounding region and driving local industrial transformation and upgrading. This area, once four towns dependent on agriculture and fishing in a slow-growth region in eastern Guangdong, is now quickly rising as a modern coastal area, a new industrial hub, and a green, livable city. It is becoming a new strategic growth engine in the Shenzhen metropolitan area," said Wu.

Government-enterprise collaboration realizes market connectivity and resource sharing

In 2022, China approved the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as an important node in the "east data, west computing" project.

Why Ningxia?

According to Zhu Yun, general manager of China Unicom Zhongwei Cloud Data Center, located at the geometric center of China's territory, Ningxia connects markets in the east with the resource-rich west. With every major city within just 2,000 kilometers, it represents the optimal path choice for fiber optic network coverage across the country. With an average annual temperature of 8.8 degrees Celsius and over 280 days of excellent environmental conditions each year, Zhongwei in Ningxia offers ideal conditions for building natural air-cooled data centers. It also enjoys abundant and complementary energy resources, including coal, wind and solar power, ensuring a stable, sufficient, and cost-effective electricity supply. From data center to end user, electricity costs no more than 0.36 yuan per kilowatt-hour.

Digitalization and intelligent technologies now permeate every aspect of social life, with computing power playing an increasingly pivotal role in both production and daily activities. In Zhongwei, once deemed a "digital desert," clusters of data centers are rising rapidly, driving vibrant industrial growth across multiple regions, Zhu noted.

In economic development, the government and enterprises play distinct yet complementary roles. The government charts the policy course, fosters the business environment, and provides services. Enterprises turn resources into productivity. To properly handle the relationship between the government and enterprises, it is essential to strike the right balance. The government must remain active and supportive without overreaching, while businesses should pursue innovation within regulatory boundaries. As China advances toward a unified national market, new forms of cooperation between the government and enterprises are continually emerging to enhance market connectivity and the sharing of resources, Hou explained.

The ultimate goal of coordinated regional development is to achieve common prosperity in all regions, promote developed regions to take the lead in achieving modernization, and then drive underdeveloped regions to achieve modernization. This is the specific requirement for promoting Chinese modernization in coordinated regional development. To promote coordinated regional development on the new journey, we must promote effective connection, organic integration, linkage and interconnection between major regional strategies. At the same time, we need to attract global high-quality resources and factors to participate in the mutual promotion of domestic and international dual circulation. On the other hand, we must take the fundamental interests of the people as the starting point and foothold, and shift the development mindset from relatively focusing on the pursuit of "economic prosperity" to more attention on the pursuit of "people's happiness." Taking life as the guide, ecology as the background, and development as the foundation, China should continuously improve the living standards and quality of residents' lives and meet the people's aspirations for a better life, Hou noted.