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China seeks to revitalize its ailing
'rust belt'
HARBIN - China's
three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and
Liaoning are formulating plans to rejuvenate the
country's ailing, inefficient traditional industrial
base. Their plans include regrouping existing industrial
enterprises, bringing in advanced technologies, boosting
research and development of new products, and opening
the doors of state-owned industrial enterprises to
private investment from home and abroad, officials said.
China has been vainly attempting to resuscitate
the region since the mid-1990s when the country's
outmoded state-owned enterprises began to fail. The move
follows a speech made by Premier Wen Jiabao during his
inspection tour in the region early this month. Wen said
that the central government would support the three
provinces in their efforts to readjust the economic
structure and to upgrade technology. By doing so, China
aims to build the northeast region into a national and
even a world-class industrial base for equipment
manufacturing and important raw materials, Wen said.
It is a sign that Chinese leaders are aware that
revitalization and prosperity in this old industrial
base had a very important bearing on the realization of
China's goals of building a relatively affluent society
and quadrupling the national gross domestic product
within 20 years, said Xu Chuanchen, director of the
China State Economy Research Center at Jilin University.
Covering the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin
and Liaoning,the northeast region, dubbed the
"industrial cradle" of New China, played a major role in
the industrial development of China. The central
government launched 150 state key heavy industrial
projects during the first several years after the
founding of New China in 1949, one-third of which were
built in this region. These projects were in the fields
of iron and steel, chemicals, heavy machinery,
automobiles and defense industries.
However,
many of the traditional industrial enterprises that were
established in the 1950s when China adopted a planned
economic system became less competitive and some have
been losing money over the past 20 years, during which
time China implemented the policies of reform and
opening up to the outside, and moved from a planned
market economy toward a market economy.
The
proportion of the region's industrial output value to
the national total dropped to 9 percent from the former
17 percent. Some loss-making state industrial
enterprises were closed.
Analysts have called
the move another major strategy the Chinese government
has adopted to boost its economy following its massive
programs to develop the east coastal regions starting
late last century and the massive program to develop the
vast under-developed western region three years ago.
After more than 20 years of reform and opening to the
outside world, a market economic system has taken shape
in China and the overall national economic strength has
increased markedly.
It is hoped that the
revitalization program will make the northeastern region
a new economic growth area following the flourishing
Pearl River delta in the south, a result of the reform
drive, and the Yangtze River delta in the east, said Xu
Zemin, a research fellow with the Heilongjiang
Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.
(Asia
Pulse/XIC)
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