Spatial Distribution Of Automobile Manufacturing Industry In China

Having experienced60years of ups and downs, China’s automobilemanufacturing industry, known as “industry of industries”, has become one of thedriving force of the domestic economical development, and occupied the importantposition in China’s national economy. From a historical point of view, China’sautomobile manufacturing industry has gone through the process of growing fromnothing and to be large, has changed the blank situation of China’s automobile industryand become the “locomotive”of China’s manufacturing industry. Since joining inWTO, the integration of China’s automobile manufacturing industry with the world hasaccelerated, bringing new opportunity and good surroundings to the rapid developmentof China’s automobile manufacturing industry. So China manufacturing industry havemake a great progress in terms of production scale, product variety, technology level,automobile production and sales, market concentration, etc. The regional distributionindustry also changed consequently. Thus, development of Chinese automobilemanufacturing industry has attracted the attention of the domestic and foreign scholars,and has become a hot topic for discussing since then.At present, the research of China’s automobile manufacturing industry in theacademic field are mainly focusing on the topic of the development and presentsituation of China’s manufacturing industry, the countermeasures to improve thecompetitiveness of the industry, the development of automobile industry cluster,adjustment and upgrading of automobile industry,etc. and has put forward a lot ofsuggestions and countermeasures about promoting the development of China’sautomobile manufacturing industry. However, under the new circumstances, China’smanufacturing industry is facing new challenges and opportunities. From theperspective of regional distribution, both systematic analysis and thematic frame on theevolution and changes of regional distribution of China’s automobile manufacturingindustry and industry segment has not been mature. Despite some scholars haveaddressed this problem, both the depth and the breadth of the research maintained to bedeveloped and the research needs to correlate with the objective reality of the regionaldistribution of China’s automobile manufacturing industry. Therefore, from the perspective of regional economy, this thesis not only reviews the evolution of theregional distribution of China’s automobile manufacturing industry carefully, but alsoanalyzed its current situation objectively. Besides, it studied factors influencing theautomobile manufacturing industry regional distribution from both the qualitative andquantitative methods which will make up for the blankness in the research on regionaldistribution of automobile manufacturing industry to some extent and also providedreferences for the later people to study the regional distribution of other industries. Inaddition, the research on current situations of regional distribution of China’sautomobile manufacturing industry, its transfer trend, and the formation of the newpattern in future will affect the sustained and healthy development of China’sautomobile manufacturing industry. Holding the direction of regional distribution of ofthe automobile manufacturing industry changes, making reasonable layout areessential to make the overall plan of regional coordinated development to narrow thegap between regional economies and to enhance the overall competitiveness of China’sautomobile industry. This thesis teases the basic theory and related research literatureof industrial distribution, examines the influencing factors of China’s automobilemanufacturing industry by empirical test, studied the evolution of the regionaldistribution of China’s automobile manufacturing industry and the formationmechanism of the current situation from both theoretical and empirical aspects and putforward some reasonable suggestions focusing on these problems which will providereference for the government to make regulation policies.This thesis contains six chapters in all, which are as follows:Chapter one is the introduction part. This chapter reviews the related literature onregional distribution of automobile manufacturing industry, concludes and commenton the theoretical and empirical research at home an abroad, which lay a theoreticalfoundation for the study of the distribution of Chinese automobile manufacturingindustry.Chapter two is the theoretical part. The related concepts and theories of theregional distribution are reviewed to provide a solid theoretical foundation for theanalysis of the evolution of regional distribution and influence factors of China’sautomobile manufacturing industry in the latter sections. Meanwhile, the distributionmeasure used in this study is introduced, providing a theoretical basis for the furtherempirical analysis of the influence factors. Chapter three mainly analyzes the evolution, current situation and the change ofthe regional distribution of automobile manufacturing industry in China. First of all,from the perspective of evolution process of regional distribution, the evolutionprocess of regional distribution of automobile manufacturing industry is systematicallyreviewed, which is divided into four stages, and the causes and conditions of eachstage are discussed. Secondly, the evolution process of regional distribution ofautomobile manufacturing industry is analyzed from three dimensions industry, spaceand time. Finally, the regional distribution change trend of China’s automobilemanufacturing industry is measured with spatial index. Namely, from the perspectiveof industry, the geographic concentration degree of two digit industry, vehiclemanufacturing, auto parts and accessories manufacturing of China’s automobilemanufacturing in last decade are analyzed by using the proportion of output value,spatial Gini coefficient and EG index; from the perspective of district, The spatialdistribution change trend of30provinces in China are investigated, the proportion ofoutput value of the automobile manufacturing two digit industry and location entropyof both the two digit and three digit industry are calculated. The results shows that bothfrom the perspective of industry and district, the agglomeration level of two digit andthree digit industry of automobile manufacturing industry in China is low, and theregional concentration distribution is mainly based on Shanghai, Jilin, Hubei,Guangdong and other areas. And not only the current distribution status of China’sseveral major automobile industry base are introduced, but also the regionaldistribution change trend of the automobile manufacturing industry is analyzed in thischapter.In chapter four, the influencing factors of the regional distribution evolution ofChina’s automobile manufacturing industry is analyzed in details from the perspectiveof the regional economics theory and related regional distribution theory. According tomentioned above and the research results of predecessors, we consider that the factorsinfluencing the regional distribution of China’s automobile manufacturing industrymainly includes six aspects: policy factors, the opening degree, mechanism ofcumulative causation, labor pool, market conditions and industrial supporting capacity.The policy factors run through the whole forming process of regional distributionpattern of automobile manufacturing industry; The openness have a great effect on theenterprise location selection,development of enterprises and sales of products, especially location selection, products consumption and investment of the jointventures; Mechanism of cumulative causation is the internal motivation of thedistributional evolution and cluster development of automobile manufacturing industry;human resource level, labour cost, market potential, transportation cost and industrialsupporting capacity would also promote or hinder the development of regionaldistribution of automobile manufacturing industry in varying degrees. From thetheoretical point of view, the influential degree of six factors on regional distributionof automobile manufacturing industry is various in different stages.Chapter five is the empirical analysis section. In this chapter, the influence factorsof regional distribution of China’s automotive industry and its sub industries areproved by empirical test using the SPSS17.0software. It is founded that circulatoryaccumulation mechanism, opening degree and industrial supporting capacity play asignificant role in promoting the regional distribution development of automobilemanufacturing industry and its sub industries. Low transportation cost is beneficial toattract the automobile manufacturing industry and its sub industries to make locationchoice. Some other factors such as industrial supporting capacity also promote theregional distribution of whole automobile industry and automobile part manufacturingindustry. However it’s effect on the vehicle manufacturing is not obvious. Humanresource function do not play it fully in the field of automobile manufacturing. Policyfactors have a hindering effect on the regional distribution of either the overall autoindustry or the its sub industry.In chapter six, the existing problems of the automobile manufacturing industry inChine are deeply studied and some suggestions to solve these problems are putforward according to the qualitative and quantitative analysis results and the resultsgotten in the fifth chapter. The existing problems are as follows: the industrialagglomeration is weakened, vehicle and automobile part productions are separated;regional coordination is not smooth, the layout of the automobile industry in eachprovinces is repeated; government intervention is significant and local protectionismexists widely; technical research is not adequately done and production manufacturersrely heavily on FDI; the flow of factors is limited and human resource function did notplay their full role. Therefore, to sole the above problems, the developmental directionof automobile manufacturing industry in the future should be examined from a higherperspective in China.We should strengthen the research and development of our own core technology and try to get rid of dependence on FDI; We should promote clusterproduction and achieve production integration, break the administrative boundariesand promote fair competition in the industry; We should promote intensive productionand make scale economic play an important role; We should promote the cooperationbetween officials, education and research to improve technological innovationcapability, which is important to make overall planning for harmonious regionaldevelopment, perfect the spacial layout of automobile manufacturing, promote thesustainable and healthy development of China’s automobile manufacturing industry,and improve the overall competitiveness.