Industrial upgrade and economic governance in the Pearl River Delta—a case study of Dongguan city

Zhifeng Wang,Xiaoming Xu,Zhiqing Liang

doi:10.1186/s40589-016-0043-x

Zhifeng Wang, Xiaoming Xu + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40589-016-0043-x

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Abstract

The Pearl River Delta, one of the main regions of China’s export-oriented economy, has benefited from its traditional economic structure for three decades which in turn appeared to hinder further economic development recently. To advance industrial restructuring and upgrading, the governments have promulgated policies and appropriated special funds to optimize the industrial structure of the Pearl River Delta. Dongguan is a famous export-oriented and manufacturing city in China. Taking Dongguan city as a case, and applying the method of Difference-in-Difference (DID), using time-series data from 1997 to 2014, this article analyzes the policy benefits of Dongguan’s industrial transformation and upgrading, aiming to not only examine the effectiveness of industrial upgrades and the effects of economic governance in the Pearl River Delta but provide some reference to other export-oriented regions of China.

Highlights

Since the Reform and Opening up, China’s coastal areas represented by the Pearl River Delta focused on manufacturing activities
Through analyzing the evolution of industrial structure in Dongguan, this paper evaluates industrial policy, explores the economic structure and governance efficiency of the Pearl River Delta, and enriches the relevant research in the following areas: (1) makes a comprehensive analysis of the industrial transformation policy of Dongguan and its impact on the industrial structure of the region leading to a deeper understanding about the quality and quantity of the industry transformation; (2) uses the Difference-in-Difference (DID) model to quantitatively analyze the implementation effectiveness of the related industrial transformation policies in Dongguan that improves the existing research; and (3) contributes to further research in that most of the export-oriented regions of China are in a critical period of industrial upgrade, just like Dongguan
While Dongguan was dedicated to the introduction of investment and to the vigorous development of the third industry. Whether it is in the Pearl River Delta or in Dongguan, the data reveal that the slowdown of the second industry is caused by a slowdown in GDP growth

Summary

Introduction

Since the Reform and Opening up, China’s coastal areas represented by the Pearl River Delta focused on manufacturing activities. In the implementation of exportoriented economic policies, many positive advances have been achieved, including the development and structure of the economy, the level of openness, and the degree of foreign trade in these regions, which are important engines of economic growth in China. To meet the economic problems and challenges, the governments have promulgated policies and appropriated special funds to support the implementation of industrial restructuring and upgrading. The Guangdong provincial government made the strategy of “double transference” and a series of supporting industrial policies to promote industrial restructuring and implemented economic governance policies with industrial upgrading as the core. How did these governmentled industrial policies’ effectiveness and whether the objective of optimizing industrial structure is achieved? How did these governmentled industrial policies’ effectiveness and whether the objective of optimizing industrial structure is achieved? These problems are a “hot topic” of current academic research

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Conclusion