Industrial Structure Optimized Path Selection - General Theory And Its Application On The Yangtze River Delta

Economiccompetition in the final analysis is industrial competition. Country's overall economic competitiveness depends greatly on international competitiveness of its major industry. Since China's reform and opening up, its industrial structure adjustment and optimization have been accelerated and economic development achieved remarkable results with overall national strength increasing greatly. With China's entry into WTO, the pace of economic globalization has been speed up and industrial restructuring comes to a new historical stage. In the next two or three decades, the main theme of China's economic development will be industrial structure adjustment and optimization.What path and mode would be most favorable to China's industrial restructuring and upgrading? Which path should we choose, endogenous path or export-oriented optimization path? Or take another third path? This is the decision that the current economic situation should make. China's industrial restructuring will not only face competitions in the domestic market, but also pressures from the international markets. The enclosed industrial structure system is totally out of tune with the current economic situation, which is featured as globalization and trade and investment integration. But an open industrial system canl also produce problems, for example, a country is often subject to be affected by economic fluctuations or political influence abroad, thus likely to lose the initiatives in adjusting the industrial structure and economic development speed. Therefore, China's industrial structure adjustment should follow the path of self-dominated optimization.Yangtze River Delta region is the most developed area with dense population and highly-developed industries. After 30 years'reform and opening up, its economy has formed a solid foundation and industrial structure keeps on optimizing with secondary and tertiary industries as the main impetus of its economy. But Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and World Financial Crisis in 2007 has produced some critical problems to the area due to its export-oriented mode. Therefore, the mode is no longer suitable to the area and should be changed.This paper analyzes the path that China and Yangtze River Delta should take in the industrial restructuring. It first describes the contents, objectives of industrial structure optimization, and summarized two general paths and four practical modes. Then it summarizes the different dynamic mechanisms and factors in two different general paths. The paper, from the theoretical and empirical perspects, takes Yangtze River Delta as an example to illustrate the different impacts on industrial structure, and draws a conclusion that only self-dependent development mode is the most optimal path for Yangtze River Delta development in the next decades. The paper also puts forward some countermeasures in Chapter Eight to overcome the obstacles it encountered in the industrial optimization.