Study On The Marine Resource Allocation Method

Marine resource allocation is the allocation process between marine resourcesand sea area users. The allocation of marine resources is directly aimed to identifysuitable persons with sea area use rights for specific waters. The ultimate goal ofChina’s marine resource allocation is to preserve and increase the value of marineresources, and to maximize the integrated benefits of the state as the sole subject ofmarine resources, including political benefits, social benefits and ecological benefitslike national security, public welfare and environmental protection, so that the rationaldevelopment and sustainable use of marine resources would be achieved.Marine resources are the country’s fundamental natural resources and strategiceconomic resources with very prominent scarcity. Currently，several issues exist inChina’s sea area management, including: serious contradiction in sea area use amongdifferent industries, overheated sea reclamation, extensive use of marine spatialresources, low-level of coastal resources use, the higher bidder tend to obtain sea areause right through auction, bids and listing, marine ecological environment continuesto deteriorate, etc.. These issues in fact reflect some problems in China’s marineresources allocation, which can be summarized in three aspects: the legal system ofmarine resource allocation is not perfect; the sea area use fees as the sea area resourceallocation economic lever did not play its due role; and the development process ofmarket-oriented allocation is still low. In December2013, the Third Plenary Sessionof18th CPC Central Committee repositioned the status and role of resourceconfiguration in the market, and objectively required marine resources to beconfigured both from the overall national interests and vital interests of people, and tostrictly manage the primary market of marine resource configuration, and to speed upthe operation of the secondary market for the allocation of marine resources. However, there are still gaps between our marine resource allocation and the country’s demandand the requirements of sea use management practices. The current allocationmechanism is hard to satisfy people’s demands for beautiful and safe marineecological environment, coastal areas’ demands for marine disaster prevention andmitigation for the sake of development, and sea area users’ demands for protect theirrights and interests.Therefore, it is urgent to carry out research on marine resource allocation method,refine, adjust and improve our marine resource allocation, to make the allocationresults more reasonable, identify sea area users who are more “fit” for specific waters,and better reflect the comprehensive value of marine resources, thereby to providetechnical and policy support for the integrated marine management sectors.The paper firstly discusses the basic background and research status at home andabroad, then reviews China’s marine resource allocation development process,analyzes the current issues in our marine resource allocation based on statistics andfield research, studies the fundamental basis of China’s marine resource allocationfrom legal, planning, policy and theoretical perspectives, finally studies the marineresource allocation method through its evaluation system and configuration process,and proposes concrete recommendations on China’s marine resource allocation.The content framework of the paper could be divided into four parts. The firstpart (Chapter0, Chapter1, Chapter2and Chapter3) analyzes the basic researchbackground and existing critical issues; the second part (Chapter4and Chapter5)studies the fundamental basis of China’s marine resource allocation method, includinglegal basis, planning and policies basis and theoretical basis. The third part (Chapter6and Chapter7) is the core of the paper, which focuses on the marine resourceallocation method and specific measures. The fourth part (Chapter8) summarizes thewhole paper. The concrete framework is as follows:The introduction part describes the purpose, significance, research ideas, keyissues, technical route, research methods and innovative areas, research necessity andfeasibility, domestic and abroad researches in and other contents firstly. In the second chapter, the basic theory of the sea area resource allocation isdiscussed. Marine resource allocation has scientific connotation and extension. Thepremise of their research is marine function zoning with the ways including themarket configuration and administration configuration, and the main units are thestate and individuals; the objects are the sea area resources relying on the seas andtidal waters; immediate goal is to find a suitable person with sea use rights;fundamental goal is to promote the rational development and sustainable use ofmarine resources; and the substance is the distribution relations of marine resources incoastal areas and even the whole society.Chapter Three studies the development and status of marine resource allocationmechanism. Marine resource allocation mechanism in China has gone through fourstages, that is, research gaps, the initial specification, preliminary establishment, anddevelopment, and each stage has different characteristics. At present, sea resourceallocation in China has objectively major problems, including imperfect legislation ofmarine resource allocation, sea area use expense not forming the leading regulationfor the resource utilization structure and spatial layout and other aspects, and thesecondary market development lags. This chapter uses statistical data to compare andanalyze sea area use statistics for11coastal provinces from2002to2012, with thesupport of the departments concerned, for the tenth anniversary of the implementationof “Sea Area Use Management Law", to carry out the research and analysis of seaarea management for a total of18administrative departments, including Liaoning,Hebei and other11coastal provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) andfour cities of Dalian, Qingdao, Ningbo and Xiamen, as well as the North Sea, SouthChina Sea and East China Sea and other branches, regarding resource allocation asone of the important research issues, and problems in the marine resourceconfiguration in our waters, since the10th anniversary of the implementation of "SeaArea Use Management Law" are comprehensively analyzed and summed up.Reviewing the history and clarifying the status quo are better to study sea arearesource allocation methods. The fourth chapter studies the legal basis for the sea area resource allocation inChina. At present, in China,"Sea Area Use Management Law","MarineEnvironmental Protection Law" and "Property Law", these three laws are regarded asthe backbone. The marine resource allocation legal system is initially formed,consisting of regulations, regulations and normative documents set by the StateCouncil, the State Oceanic Administration and the relevant ministries and the coastalprovinces (municipalities and autonomous regions)on sea area management, with themain aspects covering the marine resource property system, the paid sea area usesystem, marine resource market trading system, sea area use verification system,marine environmental impact assessment system, etc. The study on the marineresource allocation method must take our current marine resource configuration laws,rules, regulations and normative documents as the legal basis.Chapter Five studies the policy and theoretical basis for the marine resourceallocation in China. Marine function zoning is the scientific basis for the marineresource allocation in China.“The Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economicand Social Development" and other national development plans, guidelines andpolicies, as well as the marine resources and environmental economics industrialeconomics, regional economics, property right economics, ecological economics andother kinds of economics theories also provide the scientific policy and theory basisfor the study of marine resource allocation method.Chapter Six discusses the marine resource allocation method. First, therelationship between sea area resource allocation method established in this paper andthe status of marine resource allocation is analyzed, which aims at the refinement,adjustment and improvement of the current marine resource allocation. The marineresource configuration method in China includes an evaluation system and aconfiguration process. Among them, the evaluation system includes four aspects, thatis, the evaluation index selection, index weight determination, evaluation analysis andevaluation decision-making. The most core is to select the evaluation index anddetermine the index weights, and the paper selects a number of primary and secondary evaluation index, reflecting the multiplicity of the marine resource values, providingthe scientific and valid approach for realizing the direct target of the sea arearesources; the configuration process includes five areas, the configuration basis,configuration startup, configuration verification and configuration EIA, configurationassessment, configuration result, and the configuration process is with the operability.Chapter Seven studies the detailed suggestions for the marine resource allocationin China. For the purpose of improving the marine resource allocation in China, it’snecessary to rely on our marine resources allocation methods, and also to createboldly the mechanisms, institutions and do some institutional arrangements. Whileadhering to the administrative configuration and at the same time the marketallocation for the marine resource allocation in China, configuration method change isneeded to carry out, promoting the market allocation of marine resources. In order tocomprehensively promote the marine resource allocation, it’s needed to improve thelegislation, advance the system (establishing purchasing and storage system for seaarea use, innovative sea area use right transfer mechanism, establishing the annualplan system by way of an invitation of “bids, auction and listing”), establish thenational or regional marine resource trading platform, expand the financing scope andimprove decision support mechanisms (regional integrated ocean management system,sea-related sectoral coordination and management mechanisms, coordinationmechanism within the marine sectors), etc.The last Chapter describes the key elements, the basic conclusion, shortage andoutlook of this study.The creative and exploratory study in this paper could be summarized as thefollowing three aspects:1. Enriches the theoretical system of marine resource allocation. At present, thereis no academic concept concerning “marine resource allocation”. This paper describesthe concept and characteristics of marine resource allocation in China by combiningthe functional attribute of marine resources, the basic property of marine resourcesallocation and status of China’s sea are use management, defines two time frames for marine resource allocation. Meanwhile, the paper studies the basic theory of marineresource allocation, including the subject, object, immediate goal, ultimate goal andits essence，discusses the primary market, the secondary market and the middlemarket of marine resource allocation, analyzes the relationship among the economiclever adjustment mechanism of marine resource allocation, resource use andenvironmental protection through current resources market transactions system,system of compensation for the use of sea area, sea area use demonstration systemand marine environmental impact assessment system. Concerning the imperfect legalsystem, the paper proposes a comprehensive legal framework for China’s marineresource allocation, further enriches the Chinese marine resource allocationtheoretical system.2. Raises the superficial issues in sea area management to theoretical study ofmarine resource allocation, further incorporates the theory into marine resourceallocation assessment system by closely following the new positioning of the decisiverole of market in resource allocation, and makes proposals on the allocation methodand specific measures. These measures are, for example, to implement the annual plansystem by way of an invitation of “bids, auction and listing”, and to build up nationalor regional marine resources transaction service platform. These methods andmeasures not only strongly respond the trends and requirements that market shouldplay a “decisive role” in resource allocation which proposed in the Third PlenarySession of18th CPC Central Committee, but also will perfect our marine resourceallocation, as well as promote and facilitate the sea area management.3. Based on the existing issues in marine resource allocation and the practice ofsea area management, the paper constructs the marine resource allocation method,including1evaluation system and1allocation process. In terms of evaluation system,4aspects were structured: evaluation index to select-index weightidentification-evaluation and analysis-evaluation and decision-making. Evaluationindex is consists of4primary indicators and24secondary indicators. The primaryindicators are social benefits, economic benefits, resource and environment benefits and other benefits. Employment level, landscape impact level and public service wereadded in social indicator; unit coastline output and tax compliance degree were addedin economic indicator; loan repay ability was added in other benefits indicator. Thewhole framework fully considered the public nature of marine resources, thepervasiveness of sea area use, completely respected the current status of sea areamanagement, and took account of the objective needs of marine environment andresources protection on both national and social levels. It will help to realize thecomprehensive value of marine resources. In terms of allocation process,5aspectswere set up: allocation basis-allocation startup-allocation verification and allocationenvironmental assessment-allocation evaluation-allocation result. Marine resourceallocation evaluation process was added following sea area use demonstration andmarine environmental impact assessment, making the allocation basis more sound andadequate, the result more reasonable, and the user “fit” for the specific watersstandard a more scientific one. The method refined, adjusted and improved currentmarine resource allocation system. It is a useful supplement to the existing marineresource allocation system.All in all, with the Third Plenary Session of18th CPC Central Committeeproposing the market to play the "decisive" role in the resource allocation, the marineresource allocation problem will undoubtedly become the hot spot and focus ofcurrent researches in the sea area management. Marine resource allocation methodtakes on the macro-economics and micro-economics, sea area management,environmental management, resource management, requiring comprehensiveconsideration from the material production, administrative agencies, managementsystems, institutional arrangements, organizational establishment, managementfunctional adjustment, ideas and other aspects. Objectively, in this paper, the researchon the resource allocation mechanism is only a preliminary study, and many theoriesand perspectives need to be supplemented and perfected in the sea area managementpractice, and some measures and proposals have to be gradually demonstrated andimproved in the marine management practices.