At the end of 1970s, the Pearl River Delta region between Hongkong and Guangzhou was still 40,000 square kilometers of hills and paddy fields, and now it is a world factory with an annual gross industrial output value of over 700 billion US dollars. China's densest urban agglomeration with a population of over 60 million, including Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the third and fourth largest cities in China, constitutes one of the two most outstanding engines of China's economy in the world. If China's reform is incremental reform, China's economic growth is firstly incremental acquisition, followed by stock revitalization, with the largest increment in the Pearl River Delta.
As an incremental Pearl River Delta, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Guangdong "Four Little Tigers" are the explosive forces in the past 20 years, starring in the legendary drama of reform and opening up in the South. The four modes of the Pearl River Delta have added a beautiful stroke to the "Beijing Consensus" and "China Experience".
On the 30th anniversary of the reform and opening-up, it is the theme of this topic "Re-report on the Pearl River Delta Model" to discuss the context of the Pearl River Delta model and its enlightenment to the development of China.
What do you get by searching the word "Pearl River Delta Model" on the Internet?
Words such as "Pearl River Delta Dilemma" and "Pearl River Delta Model Crisis" abound, but all kinds of conclusions about the Pearl River Delta or the Pearl River Delta model are unthinking. For example, "manufacturing dilemma" has become the biggest problem for enterprises in the Pearl River Delta to enter the international market and participate in global competition.
"Many enterprises in the Pearl River Delta have fallen into the quagmire of low-price competition and cannot extricate themselves. At this time, if enterprises want to survive, they can only find ways to give workers an idea. The shackles of the Pearl River Delta have obvious "natural" nature. At the beginning of its rise, it was destined to go to this step today. " (Debate on the Pearl River Delta Model)
The Pearl River Delta model mentioned here basically only refers to the so-called "three supplies and one supplement" processing trade industry, as if this is the whole of the "Pearl River Delta model". But this is not the case.
Four modes of Pearl River Delta
There is no unified "Pearl River Delta Model" in reality. In 1980s, there was a contrast between "Pearl River Model" and "Southern Jiangsu Model" in academic circles, but at that time it mainly referred to the development model of township enterprises. The so-called "Pearl River Model" mainly refers to the development model of township industries in Shunde and Zhongshan, and it may be more accurate to call it "Shunde Model". As for the "Pearl River Delta Model" accused above, it is actually more of a feature of the "Dongguan Model".
However, the "Dongguan Model" is only one of the various development models in the Pearl River Delta, and it is not even the most mainstream development model. In the Pearl River Delta, there have been at least four distinctive development models, namely Shunde model, Nanhai model, Dongguan model and Shenzhen model.
Even in the above four modes, the most commendable one is not Dongguan mode. Shunde mode has long been known as "the terrible Shunde people", and Nanhai mode has also created an economic miracle, while Shenzhen mode clearly represents the development direction that China should pursue.
In 1980s, most local development models in China were based on the leading factor that induced industrialization, that is, the road from agricultural society to industrialization.
Among the four modes in the Pearl River Delta, "Nanhai Mode" is the most typical local private economy. Local farmers in the Pearl River Delta who are good at doing business, taking advantage of the favorable conditions of the Pearl River Delta taking the lead in reform and opening up, made their first pot of gold from trade, and then traced it back to the field of industrial manufacturing, gradually adding technology research and development factors to industry, gradually upgrading the industrial grade, and completing the process of trade-industry-technology transformation summarized by Liu Chuanzhi. The South China Sea model can also be seen in Panyu, Guangzhou and Xinhui, Jiangmen.
In the process of inducing industrialization, grass-roots governments have played a more important role. During the planned economy period, Shunde had some foundations of agricultural machinery industry and silk reeling industry, and trained some small industrial management talents. After taking the lead in opening up in 1980s, county, town and village governments showed great interest in industrialization, encouraged large-scale township industries, and tried their best to obtain financial support from financial institutions, thus making Shunde in a leading position in the national market in some industrial fields and laying a foundation for Shunde's industrial competitiveness. The reform in 1990s completed the privatization of these township industries, and transformed Shunde into a region dominated by private economy. Some areas such as Xiaolan Town, dongfeng town and Foshan City in the northwest of Zhongshan also have the characteristics of Shunde model.
As far as the whole city is concerned, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone has also gone through a "trade-industry-technology model" similar to Lenovo. At the beginning of the establishment of special economic zones in the early 1980s, trade actually started with preferential policies, which laid the capital foundation of special economic zones. Later, in 1985- 1986, Shenzhen Special Zone began its first industrial transformation, from trade to large-scale investment in industry. In the mid-1990s, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone began its first industrial transformation. Around 2006-2008, Shenzhen began its third industrial transformation. On the basis of the original industry and high-tech industry, the industrial focus began to shift to high-end service industry. In the Shenzhen model, we can see the basic balance of state-owned capital, private capital and foreign capital, while in its state-owned assets system, we can see the balance of local state-owned capital, Beijing central enterprises and Hong Kong central enterprises. In foreign capital, we can see the basic balance of Hong Kong and Taiwan capital, Asian capital and European and American capital, while in Shenzhen's private capital, we can see the essence of Shenzhen model: private innovative technology enterprise groups.
"Dongguan Model" is at most a prehistoric version of "Shenzhen Model", which is a processing trade system transplanted from Shenzhen in the 1980s. Today, there are still a lot of remnants of the "Dongguan Model" in Longgang District, Baoan, Shenzhen, but Dongguan quickly copied and expanded it into a geometric series, and its scale is staggering. Even though Dongguan appeared in front of the world as a "world factory" and was crowned as a "famous manufacturing city" for several years in a row, the total output value of processing trade industry and the total export value of Dongguan never exceeded that of Shenzhen. More precisely, it should be the east coast of the Pearl River Delta (Dongguan and Shenzhen) that together constitute the "world factory".
In fact, the criticism of the Pearl River Delta model is mostly "Dongguan model". The so-called "Dongguan model" is like this: Dongguan provides land, which may be a standard factory building that has been built, Sichuan, Hunan and other provinces provide cheap labor, and foreign capital provides funds, equipment, technology and management. In this model, the biggest characteristics are three: surgical implantation, foreign investment-led, export-oriented, which can be summarized as "three models of foreign investment."
Surgical implantation means that the whole manufacturing system is directly added to the region from the outside, rather than an industrial body that spontaneously grows in the region itself and has flesh-and-blood ties with local culture and economy. This industrial body has a natural feature: like nomadic people, it lives on water plants, where there are abundant water plants, there are water plants, and because its "yurts" are assembled, it is very convenient and easy to move; Needless to say, foreign investment is dominant, because China lacks capital and industrial experience, and industrial investment needs foreign investment. As far as Dongguan is concerned, the gathering of Taiwan capital is a major feature; Export-oriented means that its main components are imported from the outside and its products are mainly exported to the market. In this model, the profits of the industry are mainly harvested by foreign capital, and the local government obtains the promotion of tax revenue (which was rarely seen in the first five years because of the local government's massive sacrifice of its own tax revenue), rent and service industry development, which seems to have obtained an industrial system out of thin air; The wages earned by migrant workers are pitiful. However, local residents basically do not participate in this industrialization process, and only earn profits from low-level service industries (such as housing or factory rental, catering, hotels and so on) by providing supporting services for industrialization.
The "Dongguan Model" is mainly concentrated in Dongguan, the customs area of Shenzhen, the western area of Boluo County in Huizhou, individual towns in Huiyang and Huidong, Zengcheng in Guangzhou, Zhongshan and southern Taishan in Jiangmen.
However, one of the characteristics of the "Dongguan Model" is that it can be copied quickly and achieve terrible scale effect. The industrialization of "Dongguan mode" can occupy a considerable share of the global market in a short time and seize cities and land on a global scale because of its simple operation, low technology content and rapid face to the huge global market. Therefore, in a short period of more than ten years, the manufacturing industry under the "Dongguan model" has had a great influence in the world, sweeping the western markets such as Europe, America and Japan, so that the Pearl River Delta manufacturing industry stared at by western media seems to be only Dongguan, so the Pearl River Delta model stared at by China media seems to be only Dongguan.
The fact that the "Dongguan Model" is dominant in the Pearl River Delta is worrying. The "Dongguan Model" gradually spread to Suzhou and even the whole coastal area of China. From south to north, Dalian, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Zhuhai and many other popular star cities are also facing the trend of "Dongguan", which is even more frustrating. It can be said that this trend accurately reflects the crazy situation that in recent years 10, especially in the last five years, global industrial capital flowed to Chinese mainland and the end of the global manufacturing chain was transplanted to Chinese mainland.
In 2008, when the "Dongguan model" encountered an unprecedented crisis, we really need to carefully examine several other more valuable development models in the Pearl River Delta, such as Shenzhen model, Shunde model and Nanhai model. Although these models have undergone many evolutions over the years, which are very different from our initial understanding, this evolution itself has shown that the Pearl River Delta can adapt to the changes of the times and is full of vitality and competitiveness.
Not just four modes.
This topic focuses on the 30-year evolution of the Pearl River Delta model, so it focuses on the four main representative models of Shunde, Nanhai, Dongguan and Shenzhen. In fact, the Pearl River Delta is a nine-city economic community, and each city has its own development characteristics. The above four models cannot cover the entire 40,000 square kilometers. In addition to the above four modes, there are at least several urban areas whose economic development paths cannot be classified into any of the above four modes. Such as Guangzhou, Huizhou and Zhuhai.
Because the development of Guangzhou did not occupy a dominant position in the region in the 1980s and 1990s, when talking about the Pearl River Delta model, Guangzhou was rarely involved. But in fact, since the late 1990s, the vitality of Guangzhou has also become an important part of the transformation of the development model of the Pearl River Delta, and the development path of Guangzhou is obviously different from the above four models, but closer to the traditional economic center city of China (similar to the industrial expansion model and industrial structure of cities such as Nanjing, Wuhan, Tianjin and Shanghai).
In fact, the so-called "Shanghai-like model" in Guangzhou can be simply described as: large local state-owned capital and multinational companies share peace and prosperity.
In the Pearl River Delta, Guangzhou is the only city where state-owned capital is in a strong control position. Most of this controversy should be attributed to the fact that state-owned capital was originally invested less in most parts of the Pearl River Delta. As the central city in southern China and the capital of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou has only received some medium-sized investment, and it is concentrated in heavy chemical industry. In the first 20 years of reform and opening-up, when the Pearl River Delta was still in the stage of light industry, Guangzhou was in the period of "Great Shanghai sinking", so under the bright starlight of the special economic zones and the Four Little Dragons, Guangzhou became ecstasy. However, after China entered the second era of heavy industrialization in the late 1990s, Guangzhou and other cities entered the modern era, and their investments in strategic industries such as automobiles, petrochemicals and shipbuilding were rewarded. Guangzhou regained its ambition and began to reorganize the old mountains and rivers with the intention of occupying the commanding heights of the whole regional competition.
Huizhou, located at the eastern edge of the Pearl River Delta, also showed the characteristics of state-owned assets-led economic development in the 1990s. However, unlike Guangzhou's established state-owned enterprises under the planned economy system, Huizhou has developed a number of emerging state-owned enterprises focusing on electronic information industry since the 1990s. TCL, Desai, Huayang and other state-owned enterprises are the main industrial entities in Huizhou. These state-owned enterprises, together with SEG Group, Konka Group and Sanjiu Group in Shenzhen, are called "Southern State-owned Enterprises" by academic circles.
The so-called "southern state-owned enterprises" have several characteristics: the state has not invested heavily, but has developed from small enterprises with small investments; Enterprises did not grow up under the planned economy, but developed through the baptism of market economy and cruel market competition; These enterprises can grow and develop under the leadership of a group of excellent state-owned managers and establish a corporate governance structure that is more suitable for the needs of the market. Among them, TCL Group also implemented the "Apollo Plan" at the beginning of this century, which solved the incentive mechanism problem of state-owned managers.
Zhuhai is completely different in the Pearl River Delta. Zhuhai, which was originally located in the marginal area of the Pearl River Delta, did not have the industrialization conditions like Nanhai and Shunde, nor did it seize the historical opportunity of Hong Kong and Taiwan's capital transfer to Guangdong like Dongguan. Therefore, the development of Zhuhai is said to be regarded as a typical example of the failure of industrialization in the Pearl River Delta. But looking at Zhuhai from another angle, it actually has some characteristics of Shenzhen model (independent innovation private technology enterprises represented by software and medicine), Dongguan model (processing trade enterprises represented by Flextronics) and Shunde model (Gree Group). Although it is not as good as Shenzhen, Dongguan and Nanshun in terms of industrial density and agglomeration, Zhuhai's overall urban development level is not low, and its per capita GDP is still one of the best in the Pearl River Delta.
The crux of the problem is that before the introduction of petrochemical industry in Zhuhai West District in the new century, Zhuhai's economic development was the only development model in the Pearl River Delta that did not cost the ecological environment. Zhuhai has always maintained the title of the most beautiful coastal city in the Pearl River Delta, and its ecosystem and urban environment have been well protected. If Zhuhai hadn't been eager to introduce petrochemical and other heavy chemical industries in recent years, Zhuhai would have fully met the requirements of the "Scientific Outlook on Development" model and become a model of scientific development.
Zhuhai's experience may be enough to make people in the Pearl River Delta think: What kind of development do we want?
Convergence of Pearl River Delta Model
As Li Yiwei, member of the Standing Committee of Foshan Municipal Committee and secretary of Nanhai District Committee, who was interviewed by this newspaper, said, over the years, the development models of cities in the Pearl River Delta have gradually blurred their individuality, showing a trend of "convergence".
For example, although the South China Sea is characterized by endogenous private capital, it is also one of the most successful cities in attracting foreign investment in recent years. Under the influence of foreign capital economy for more than ten years, local residents in Dongguan have also started the process of starting a business or capitalization, of course, starting from their familiar supporting service industry, and forming their own characteristics in the management of restaurant chains and luxury hotels; Shunde has completed the privatization of manufacturing industry, and at the same time, the private entrepreneurship of commercial circulation industry has become a common practice; Although Guangzhou and Huizhou have established their position as regional heavy industry centers, many cities in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Jiangmen have put forward the strategy of "moderate heavy industry" and are unwilling to be abandoned by the second process of heavy industrialization in China.
Why is there a serious convergence in the Pearl River Delta region? I think there are two important reasons.
One is the large-scale investment in Guangdong Province in the 11th Five-Year Plan 10, which made the whole Pearl River Delta region build an expressway network, and a rail transit network consisting of high-speed railway, light rail and subway will be formed in the future. The formation of this transportation network makes the whole Pearl River Delta show a flat urban agglomeration trend. Every city in this transportation network has no problem of marginalization or centralization, and can get efficient and convenient transportation services. This means that every city in the Pearl River Delta can no longer emphasize its superior location advantage over others and no longer has a special position. The convenience and low cost of resource flow will lead to the flattening of resource allocation in the region, at least in the Pearl River Delta region.
Secondly, since the late 1990s, the urban governments in the Pearl River Delta region have increasingly shown the characteristics of strong government.
In the 1980s and 1990s, cities in the Pearl River Delta region were famous for their weak government. There are two reasons for this. First, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, from provincial governments to cities and counties, Guangdong has always been known for its simple administration and decentralization, minding its own business and letting the grassroots and the people seek development. This governance model characterized by deregulation and laissez-faire is also a magic weapon for the Pearl River Delta to achieve great success in the 20 years before the reform and opening up. Second, before the end of 1990s, all city governments were famous for their weak financial resources. Because of its weak foundation, local finance does not have much power to intervene in the economy, and even if it wants to be strong, it cannot be strong.
However, after more than 20 years of development, cities and governments in the Pearl River Delta have accumulated considerable financial resources. In addition, after 1998, Zhu strongly promoted the development of China's real estate industry, hoping to stimulate domestic demand with the real estate industry, which is equivalent to opening the door for municipal governments to accumulate local financial resources through land development. The local governments in the Pearl River Delta, which have greatly increased their strength, have begun to become ambitious. Represented by Lin Shusen in Guangzhou and Li Hongzhong in Shenzhen, cities in the Pearl River Delta began to enter the era of strong government.
In fact, for the same reason, not only the differences between cities in the Pearl River Delta are disappearing, but also the urban development strategies and industrial policies among cities in the Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Bay and the central and western regions are converging. Maybe it will be funny for us to talk about the so-called Pearl River Delta model in a few years. Because there is no "Pearl River Delta model".