The Yiwu Commodity Market in Zhejiang Province.

On the other hand, world-class economic regions often have a clearly divided labor system; this can help the cities take advantage of each other's strengths. For example, while New York flourished as a center of finance, the nearby city of Boston has been strong in education, hi-tech research and other industries. Now, the Boston-based Route 128 hi-tech region is a major microelectronics technology center in the United States, second only to Silicon Valley.

By comparison, many of the cities in the Yangtze River Delta have diverse and separate strengths. The construction of ports, airports and other infrastructure has helped to link these cities. The key problem now is how to efficiently employ this infrastructure and develop regional integration, according to Liu.

New plans for the Yangtze

The Yangtze River Delta consists of 16 cities: Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Taizhou (Jiangsu), Yangzhou, Nantong, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Shaoxing, Zhoushan and Taizhou (Zhejiang)

The new plan for the Yangtze River Delta economic region, issued in May 2010 by the State Council, classifies the above cities as development centers and adds nine surrounding cities to the region. They are: Lianyungang, Xuzhou, Yancheng, Huai'an, Suqian, Wenzhou, Jinhua, Quzhou and Lishui.