Open up Yichang to embrace the world: Three Gorges Micro Comment
A dream of megacity should also be a dream of opening up.
How to open up? It means to ask for resources, money, policy, talents and space, to realize "going out and bringing in", and to make the whole world at my services.
According to the definition mentioned above, what Yichang has done is obviously far from satisfactory. The reason involves understanding, structural problems, policies, environment, etc..
Just as a Chinese saying goes “Bottleneck not broken, the gates are difficult to open”. The first step is to right the understanding of opening up and prioritize the enhancement of internationalization level. This is not only the hope of the 10th Provincial Party Congress, but also the necessary requirement for building a modern megacity and creating the world\'s hydropower tourism city.
The second is to innovate and perfect institutional mechanism of open economy to achieve rapid development. Greater efforts should be made in resources configuration, project funding, policy support, etc.
Meanwhile, it is also imperative to perfect the opening up service system, build a platform, improve the assessment, offer good service, and achieve higher level.
With the door wide open, we will be able to get integrated with the world stage in a quick pace.
Solid promises ·
Megacity construction is the development strategy put forward by Yichang municipal party committee and Yichang government. But in terms of the way of development, we must adhere to playing the exploratory role in reform and opening up, and bringing the province, the country, and the whole world to Yichang and vice versa. Opening up needs resources, money, policy, talents and space to make people achieve better and faster development in the competition and cooperation of high level.
Only by opening up can the city get developed
Nowadays, economic globalization has become an irreversible trend. In the wave of globalization, various elements of resources are free flowing worldwide, and exchanges and cooperation between countries are deepening. In this background, if any country or region cannot seize opportunities brought by globalization, absorb foreign advanced technologies and concepts, actively participate in international competition, constantly improve the level of opening up, it is bound to fail in the new round of economic competition. Only by unswervingly expanding opening up policy, raising the overall level of opening up, coordinating the international market and domestic markets and resources, promoting reform and development, seizing the opportunities, meeting the challenges at a more proactive stance, can Yichang keep safe in future economy development.
Take Yichang chemical industry for example, Yichang is strong in phosphorus chemical industry, so it is urgent to take advantage of the huge production potential via the external market. Therefore, "going out" is the only way to make full use of the global market, effectively resolve overcapacity, expand the market and improve the economy benefits. In a word, the development of open economy meets the objective need of economic development in Yichang. In 2012, Yichang Party committee and Yichang government took building a "big and strong, good and beautiful" megacity as Yichang’s development goal. To achieve this goal, there must be a strong modern service industry, large-scale project support and advanced management concepts. However, at present, there is lack of these concepts in Yichang, and it is clearly unrealistic to rely only on internal resources to boost development. In order to achieve the modernization construction of a mega-city, Yichang must open up to the whole country and the world, extensively absorb all the elements such as talents, technology, capital, etc. and expand the resource space, market space and technical cooperation space, .
Open economy yields remarkable achievements
In recent years, Yichang has constantly improved the level of opening up, and great progress has been made in export, foreign investment, and foreign economic cooperation steadily. But on the whole, export-oriented economic development in Yichang is still weak. Currently, Yichang’s dependence on foreign trade is less than 6%, lower than the national average and provincial one. There is a long way to go to catch up with the same level of the cities in the central China, and correspondently the development space of open economy is enormous. It is necessary to further emancipate the mind, deepen the understanding of open economy and expand the opening level.
According to the statistics from Yichang Bureau of Commerce, Yichang export value in 2013 reached $2.017 billion, an increase of 21.3%, 3.6% higher than the provincial average, and it is the first time that the total export value hit $20 billion; 18 new foreign-funded enterprises were approved with a direct foreign investment of $ 27.002 million, an increase of 18.04%; 9 foreign investment projects were approved ; the turnover of foreign economic cooperation reached $255.98 million, up 17.89% ; 9 foreign investment projects were approved with a total investment of $37,816,8 million.
In addition, 2.091 million tons of cargo went through Yichang port in 2013, up 25.8%; 103,000 TEUs were imported and exported, an increase of 35.1%; 388 ships sailed from Yichang, an increase of 50%; Yichang - Hong Kong charter flights rose to 153, transferring 12,364 passengers.
Take measures to deepen the opening up
In order to intensify efforts to develop economy, Yichang Bureau of Commerce, based on the instruction of provincial government and Party committee, has made some business development goals. The first thing is to take initiatives to promote steady growth of foreign trade. The document noted that, we must first create a favorable environment for the development of foreign trade, and make analysis and research for the current export status to promote foreign trade. Besides, we should earnestly implement the supporting policies and continue to strengthen the opening up of Yichang market. For example, we should carry out the special investigation of "exploring the export potential of corporate headquarters," aiming at making foreign trade enterprises whose headquarter is in Yichang export their majority goods via Yichang customs to promote the local foreign trade development; we should stress on implementing the specific policies of supporting foreign trade, accelerate the project of "Yichang special funds to support foreign trade" and stimulate the enthusiasm of foreign trade enterprises; we should help enterprises expand foreign market by organizing them anticipate foreign professional exhibition; we should enhance the cooperation with export credit insurance companies and make enterprises familiar with good export credit insurance policies to develop markets and new customers.
The second step is to improve service quality and boost foreign development. Yichang Bureau of Commerce should delegate the power of examination and approval to the lower-level commerce departments on the issues about foreign investment. At the same time, we should strengthen the collaboration among business sectors and tax departments, and coordinate relevant departments to promote the foreign investment approval efficiency; Foreign Service Network of the local commerce department and the platform for foreign enterprises should be built to effectively help foreign investors in solving the problems in living and career.
Third, we should take comparative advantage and strive to expand foreign economic cooperation field. We should actively create conditions to help the newly approved foreign contracted engineering firms build up cooperation with the firms in central China and form the local foreign project contracting force; moreover, we should promote labor export by foreign contracted projects, foreign aid projects, foreign investment and market development in developed countries.
Problems are of equal importantance as results
Although the opening up of Yichang City is deepening and expanding, there are still problems.
For instance, there are some crux problems with people’s opinions such as their shallow and conservative understanding of policies, which impede the opening up progress. At some places, people have different concepts on the introduction of foreign investment, exports and foreign economic cooperation, so they are conservative and make fewer steps, which slow down the opening up and the development of export-oriented economy.
In terms of export structure, Yichang foreign trades are mostly of small size, taking a small proportion of the city\'s GDP and playing a limited role in boosting the city\'s economy. Additionally, Yichang export commodity structure is irrational: low added value, low-tech, few brand and more OEM goods. Meanwhile, Yichang chemical products are accounted for a high proportion of 40% or above in the total export volume in recent years. However, chemical products are greatly affected by the national macro-policy, which finally cripples the stable development of Yichang foreign trade. Besides, export growth lacks the support of new large projects. In recent years, the development still relies on Yichang Xingfa Group Co.,Ltd, Hubei Yihua Co.,Ltd, ANGEL YEAST CO.,LTD , Allmed Medical Products Co., Ltd., HEC, and Yichang Marine Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. to expand and achieve growth. As a result, the lack of great new growth hindered the foreign trade development potential.
According to the research, in recent years, the policies like corporate income tax policy, RMB appreciation, the loan interest rate adjustment, export tax rebates, industrial policy and land policy threw negative effects on attracting foreign investment. As the preferential policies are lessened and China has relatively strict regulation on foreign investment, foreign investments become more difficult to flow into Yichang. Meanwhile, it takes advantage of foreign investment confines to some factors, including land, electricity, and industry infrastructure and so on.
Although we make some achievements in Yichang foreign economic and technological cooperation and many companies are willing to explore the international market, “going out” is still hard because of the shortage of investment, information and talents. Local SMEs lack of effective information guidance, legal services and policy support in foreign project contracting, labor cooperation and foreign investment management, so the imperfect foreign public service system weakens the anti-risk ability of SMEs in the international market.
Four keys to the problems
According to the above problems, it is indispensable to upgrade the internationalization level of Yichang. This is both the ardent hope of the 10th Provincial Communist Party Congress and the inevitable trend of the world\'s hydropower tourism city construction and a modern megacity. Besides, it is of great importance to enhance the opening up, reputation, comprehensive strength, social vitality and city charm.
Second, we must vigorously support the construction of "customs integration", namely, to strengthen coordination and communication with the port inspection departments, and further improve the port site clearance joint coordination and emergency response mechanism. We should enhance information communication between each port, timely coordinate and solve problems in clearance sessions, improve working efficiency and create a good environment for Yichang’s opening up; we should strongly support the planning and construction of Yichang special customs supervision region, taking the responsibility for the key place to develop trade and industry, so as to further boost the open economy.
Third, we must accelerate the development of exhibition services. Currently, Yichang exhibition service is still at the starting stage with facility construction falling behind, exhibition management system and coordination mechanism absent, and exhibition industry statistics and information release system deficient. Moreover, exhibitions are at the low level and have no local features, so exhibition industry cannot fully play the role in promoting tertiary industry and enhancing the image of the city. Therefore, we should prioritize exhibition industry in the city’s development, strengthen the planning guidance, promote infrastructure, make supportive policies, and select exhibition projects to achieve leapfrog development.
The fourth step is to further establish and improve the service system. In accordance with the requirements of the scientific development concept, we should make the scientific assessment methods, and strengthen and adjust the opening appraisal system; at the same time, we should let the business sectors play their coordinating role and further strengthen the organization of the opening up work. More supports should be given to business sectors in power equipment, project funding, policy and other aspects to improve and perfect the institutional mechanisms of promoting open economy development.