A Study Of Land And Resources And The Regional Economic Development In Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

In the process of economic globalization, more and more attention has been paid to the regional economic development, which ranges from the international trade cooperation like Asia-pacific economic cooperation and China-ASEAN free trade area, to the domestic trade cooperation or local trade cooperation within a certain province or district like western China development, the economic zone along the Pearl River and the five economic areas in Guangxi. How a region can develop its economy must be based on its political factors, economic background and social situations. Some regions develop their economy by the resources, some by the markets, while others follow the model of integrating their different resources. No matter what kind of model a region may take, it should put its own features into consideration so as to exert its best to gain mutual benefit.Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, situated along the coastal area of China, has a superior geographical advantage that it is one of the closest provinces to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Meanwhile, as one of the regional autonomies of minority nationalities, Guangxi enjoys institutional and policy privileges. However, its economy has long remained stagnant. What on earth hinders the development of Guangxi? Such a question has long been haunting in my mind. And the subject occurred to me whether Guangxi could seize the new opportunity of development in the 21st century since it has slept over chanceswhen others provinces and districts were making progress in the 1980s and in the 1990s. It is my original intention and it is worth careful attending to. When I began to put pen to paper, I considered connecting Guangxi's economic region with the economic area of Nanning Guiyang and Kunming. But this topic proved too broad to write mainly because the relevant materials of Yunnan and Guizhou are difficult to collect. Therefore I change my original topic "A study of the resources features of the economic area of Nanning Guiyang and Kunming and the feature economy of the region" into the present topic "A study of land and resources and the regional economic development in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region".A series of approaches have been applied to the study of land and resources and the regional economy in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The study is both systematic and integrative, since it integrates theory with practice, normative analysis with cases study, and qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis. And the conclusion is drawn on the basis of facts and analyzed data, which is in accordance with the real situations in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.Eight parts are carefully examined in the dissertation as follows. Part One mainly describes the basic situations of Guangxi, western China development, and China-ASEAN free trade area. Part Two respectively presents the features of Guangxi's resources such as land resources, water resources, mineral resources, biological resources, ocean resources and tourism resources, indicating that economic development based on resources is still the foundation of regional economic development according to the status quo of Guangxi's economic development. Part Three theoretically introduces the corresponding researches of the resources economy and regional economy and demonstrates the relationshipsof resources economy, regional economy and sustainable development. In this part, the author also expatiates on several approaches to the study of the resources economy and regional economy, especially on the approaches applied in this paper such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP for short hereinafter), Artificial Neural Network (ANN for short hereinafter), and Location Quotient (LQ for short hereinafter). Part Four starting from the competitiveness of the region, analyzes the SWOT of Guangxi's regional economic development and brings forward the "Three Strategies" and the "6355 Project" to promote Guangxi's resources economy and regional economy (The "Three Strategies" is composed of special development strategy, industrial development strategy, and market development strategy. And the "6355 Project" is referred to the development project of Guangxi's five feature economies as follows: the expansion of Guangxi's three central cities, namely the city of Nanning, the city of Liuzhou and the city of Guilin; the economic development area between the border of Hunan Province and Guangxi, the economic development area of Nanning and Kunming and the economic development area of the West River; the Five Economic Zones respectively distributing in the southern part of Guangxi, the central part of Guangxi, the northern part of Guangxi, the eastern part of Guangxi part and the western part of Guangxi; and the development of modern agriculture, waterpower and mineral industry, automobile and machinery manufacturing, aquacultural industry and tourism industry). Part Five focuses on analyzing the relations of the municipal economic development and the regional economic development. Besides, it confirms the positions of the abovementioned three central cities and sets the task for each city in the hope that the three economic development belts should be established by promoting the three central cities, so as to set up thebasic frame for Guangxi's regional economic development. The Sixth Part mainly devotes to analyzing the relations of the prefectural economic development and the regional economic development. Special attention has been attached to the analysis of some key enterprises in the process of developing the prefectural economy and some steps are also given in this part in order to achieve an overall development for Guangxi's regional economy, in Part Seven, after discussing the relations of developing feature economy and regional economy by analyzing and confirming feature economy, the writer clearly states that Guangxi must make the most of its resources and develop it feature economy if it wishes to achieve rapid economic development. Finally, in the last part, a conclusion is drawn and also the writer admits that there are still some fields in the study in this paper that require further study in the future.What the study has achieved can be summarized in the paper as follows: 1. A general and systematic study.of Guangxi's economy is carried out under the theory of the resources economy and the regional economy. The study of Guangxi's resources economy used to be on a single resource. For example, some was mainly on land resources, or on mineral resources, or on tourism resources etc., which proves to be one-sided. Besides, most of the study was mainly conducted from the perspective of the readjustment of industrial structure but less study was carried on the special structure especially least on the relations of the municipal economy, the prefectural economy and the regional economy. The study in the paper states that the resources economy lays the foundation for the regional economy and it paves the way for the readjustment of industrial structure. The development of the resources economy is a necessary step to the development of regional economy and the development of feature economy is an effective way toachieve rapid development.2. Three approaches of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Location Quotient (LQ) and are applied in the study of the resources economy and the regional economy. Three approaches are relatively advanced. Thus conclusion by them is objective and reliable and reflects the real situation of Guangxi. It hasn't been used in the previous study before. By using AHP, this paper concludes that Guangxi's integrated strength is listed number 22 in China. By applying AHP and ANN to the study of the economic strength of the respective city and town in Guangxi, the result indicates that Nanning City, Liuzhou City, Guilin City, the southern part of Guangxi and the eastern part of Guangxi are more developed in economy but Baise area, Hechi area, the western part of Guangxi and some mountainous areas are underdeveloped. All the conclusions made in the study tally with the real situation of Guangxi. Also by using LQ, the confirmed feature economy is up to the real situation.3. By putting the municipal economy, the prefectural economy and feature economy into the study of the regional economy, the topic is broadened and even more meaningful. A region is not an empty body, but is composed of different elements. So the study of the regional economy must count in the municipal economy, economic belts and the prefectural economy. Meanwhile, the carrier of economy is the industrial economy decided by different walks of trade and enterprises. Upon the influence of various factors, some of the industrial economy develops fast, while some relatively slow, which presents its own characteristics. In this case, it is extremely vital for underdeveloped areas to analyze and to determine feature trades to develop feature economy. The five feature economies of Guangxi will pave the way to rapid development for Guangxi's economy and tocatch up with other developed provinces and districts in China.4. Systematically, the study brings forward the concepts of the "Three Strategies" and the "6355 Project" to promote Guangxi's resources economy and regional economy. The "Three Strategies", which is composed of special development strategy, industrial development strategy, and market development strategy is an outline while the "6355 Project", which is referred to the development project of Guangxi's five feature economies, the establishment of three economic belts, the cultivation of five economic zones and the development of five feature economies, is an objective. Only by correctly handling these key points in the regional economic development can Guangxi rapidly promote its economy in coordination and phrase. The way to develop spatial economy is to promote economy in all areas by drawing upon experience gained at developing the municipal economy so as to promote the prefectural economy. A regional economic network will be established by combining the municipal economy, the regional economy and the prefectural economy. The development of industrial economy is to grow amid differences and to foster feature industries. Through the development of the feature economy, an overall development can be achieved in regional economy. The development of market economy is to aim at the markets. Only to revitalize economy with areas around and to carry on economic cooperate within the same region and under the strategy that Guangxi should develops by drawing investments from eastern China, depending on the abundant resources of western China, putting its products into northern China and exporting its products to southeast Asian nations, can Guangxi become the very joint to link south China with Southwest China, and to connect China with southeast Asian nations. And only then will Guangxi's economy grow in a sustainable and healthy way.