Study Of The Development Of Resource-based Industries Of The Northwest

Mineral resources are the physical support for human civilization, social and economic development. The rule of the consumption circle of mineral resources has pointed out that, when economic development experiences the changes from agriculture to manufacturing, high consumption of resources will become the striking feature, and once the change is about to complete, the demand for the mineral resources will start to decrease and then increase steadily. Mineral resources are the physical basis for the industrialization and new economic development. The consumption of mineral resources per capita is an important indicator of economic development. In different stages of industrialization, the demand for mineral resources will demonstrate different features due to the development of industrial structure, differentiation of resources, and technological progress.This paper will focus on the resource-based industry, which is also an important part of heavy industry and refers to the industry mainly in the development of energy and mineral resources, including resources processing in mining and manufacturing.At present China's industrialization has entered into the stage of heavy industry developing at top speed. The high-speed economic growth is motivated by high consumption of energy and raw materials, and inadequate supply of resource-based products becomes the principle contradiction deterring the continual, steady and coordinated development of China's economy. Therefore, the resource-based industry has strategic implications for the new industrial development. Depending on rich mineral resources, under the government's support the Northwest has formed a super-heavy industrial structure which highly inclines on energy and raw material industry. In recent years the Northwest's position as the base of energy and raw materials of the whole country has been strengthened further.The analysis on the industrial development of the Northwest indicates that, the resource-based industry has become the leading industry of the Northwest, which to some extent sustains the economic development of the region. On one hand, the advantageous industry of the Northwest only focus on mining and resources primary processing, thus the resource-based industry becomes its remarkable advantage. On the other hand, the industry in the Northwest has certain features including overall low technology, short industry chain, lack of interrelations with other industries, and is unable to play a guiding and leading role in industrial growth. At the same time the manufacturing in machinery with high technical content has not adequately developed. All of the above indicates that the economic growth of the region has strongly depended on the resource-based industry.The degree of market economy development of the Northwest is the lowest in the country, not only lower than the nation's average, but also lower than the average of the West. The resource-based industry has been one of the industries deeply affected by the planned economic system, until now a lot of the industries still face the barriers which restrict the entry of private economy and fair competition. Serious administrative monopoly and market separation have been two features of the resource-based industry of the Northwest. The technology innovation system featured by market-oriented direction and industrialization has not been formed, thus it's difficult for the technology innovation activities to play an important role in the overall industry.At present the resource-based industry of the Northwest should start a strategic transformation. In order to realize this objective, the Northwest should first study and formulate a long and medium-term development strategy, and make a development program including the Northwest's resources development, industry distribution, technology transform and innovation, pollution control and transformation of resource-based cities, and then establish a macroeconomic adjustment system and propose corresponding policies.