Cooperation between China's affluent east and the relatively bleak
and backward west has begun to bear economic fruit.
Statistics available show that the economic growth rate disparity
between the western region and the rest of China has dropped to 0.6
percentage points in 2002 from 1.5 percent points in 1999 when the
country initiated the western development strategy.
China's vast, arid western region is economically underdeveloped
mainly because of its natural, historical and social factors. Its
current per-capita gross domestic product equals to 67 percent of
the nation's average and merely 40 percent of that of the eastern
region.
Since the initiation of the western development strategy, however,
China's western area has been turning increasingly more attractive
to investors around the country with its plentiful natural
resources and broad market potential.
The Kizilsu and Kirgiz border ports, both situated at the
westernmost tip of west China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for instance, has attracted
two large investment projects.
An
engineering company from eastern Jiangsu Province has invested 5
million yuan (US$600,000) in a project with a local firm to prolong
the shelf-life of local grapes and figs, which are produced in
large quantities and high quality in Xi'an, but cannot be sold
elsewhere in the country or abroad due to deterioration.
Dai Naiping, an astute businesswoman from east China, funneled 15
million yuan (about US$1.8 million) into the prefecture, which has
1,170 kilometers of border, with the intention of changing a tiny
desolate business town into a lively booming cross-border trade
center.
"The west belongs to us all, and we want to make profits here
jointly with the people in the western area," said Dai.
It
is understood that more than 10,000 enterprises and one million
people from eastern Jiangsu Province are currently doing business
in the western region, bringing investments totaling 100 billion
yuan (US$12 billion).
"By investing in the west, eastern firms have not only helped to
stimulate the development of the west, but also further developed
themselves by engaging in new projects and new markets," said Li
Quanlin, vice-governor of eastern Jiangsu Province.
Meanwhile, capital from overseas is also beginning to enter the
west in increasing amounts.
According to a source with the Ministry of Commerce Monday, more
than 100 foreign enterprises have invested in the western areas. A
case in point is Southwest China's Sichuan
Province, which has so far drawn 82 of the world's leading
enterprises.
North China's Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region, in another example, had received 27
billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) and US$560 million of foreign capital
last year alone, which made up 40 percent of the annual fixed
assets input in the region.
"By working in cooperation with elsewhere in China, the western
region has not only activated local markets but also attained
advanced concepts and ideas about the market economy," said Jia
Zhibang, governor of northwestern Shaanxi
Province. "This, I am sure, is invisible but most
valuable."
Meanwhile, prestigious Chinese economist Liu Wei held that common
development through mutually beneficial cooperation had become a
consensus between the east and the west, and their concerted
efforts for decades would ensure a happy life and promising future
for the people in the country's western area.
(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2003)