High-Speed Railway in Yunnan Province: The Impacts of High-Speed Railway on Urban Economic Development

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid development of China’s high-speed railway has brought great impact on regional economic development. This paper evaluates the impact of Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway on the economic and social development of cities along Yunnan Province from two aspects: direct effect and indirect effect. The direct effects were evaluated by two indicators: railway transport capacity and regional accessibility. The indirect effects are evaluated by four indicators, namely regional economic development, regional industrial structure, tourism development and regional employment. The grey model prediction method is used to calculate the economic development index values of cities along the route of yunnan province in the case of “without” shanghai-kunming high-speed railway in 2017 and 2018, then compared with the actual values of that year. The results show that the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway enhances the transportation capacity of cities, improves regional accessibility, promotes economic development, promotes the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, and promotes the increase of employment in cities along Yunnan Province. Based on this, the paper puts forward the countermeasures of developing Yunnan’s high-speed economy from the aspects of giving priority to the development of tourism, optimizing the industrial layout and constructing the new town area, so as to maximize the positive effect of high-speed railway and avoid the appearance of “gray rhinoceros” of high-speed railway.