Research On Financing Problems Of Resource-dependent Cities Transformation In China

In the last decade, some resource-dependent cities in China have been suffering froma series of socio-economic problems including resource depletion, economicstructural imbalance, ecological contamination, weak infrastructure, losing attractionto investment, absence of alternative industries, stagnation of private enterprises,unemployment and poverty which are seemly destined by the resource curse and lackof overall development plan in the preliminary stage. The successful urbantransformation cases in foreign countries prove that fund-raising is the key to solvethe above-mentioned problems. In China, resource-dependent cities start late on urbantransformation with inadequate fund. Nowadays, lack of fund deteriorates into themajor bottleneck to further urban transformation. In the socialist market economysystem, it is crucial to develop the investment and fund-raising system to raiseadequate fund for urban transformation of resource-dependent cities in China.With the application of regional economics, finance, investment, fiscal science andeconometrics principles and employment of linking-theory-with-practice, dynamic,historical and institutional methodologies, this thesis, aiming to explore ways to raiseadequate fund for China resource-dependent cities’ transformation, analyzes andevaluates the current situations and effects of China resource-dependent cities’various fund-raising mechanism. On the basis of the above researches, this thesisattempts to establish and improve investment and fund-raising systems throughintroduction of market oriented competition and proposes specific measures tobroaden fund-raising sources and enhance fund-raising efficiency and effects toaccelerate China resource-dependent cities’ transformation.This thesis consists of seven chapters as follows.Chapter I is an introduction of the research background, purpose, significance,literature review, objectives, framework and innovation points.Chapter II reviews the fundamental theories including sustainable development theoryof resource-dependent cities’ urban transformation, public finance theory, financialdevelopment theory on regional development, and institutional economics theory,which sets theoretical foundation for the subsequent research. Chapter III outlines the current situation, characteristics and major problems of Chinaresource-dependent cities’ transformation.Chapter IV analyzes the fund demands and supplies of resource-dependent cities inChina. Furthermore this chapter turns to a case study of a typical resource-dependentcity, Fuxin city in Liaoning province, in which the funding requirements for economictransformation during12th five-year-plan period is estimated, analyzes various fundsupply channels for economic transformation including state budget funds, domesticloans, foreign investment, stocks, bonds, self-fund-raising, and dig into the gap offund supply and demand.Chapter V: the current situation，evolution and negative effects of the existinginvestment and fund-raising system for China resource-dependent cities’transformation. In this chapter, the author takes Fuxin city as an example to analyzethe effectiveness, function mechanism and negative effects of the investment andfund-raising system for China resource-dependent cities’ transformation.Chapter VI: Experiences of foreign fund raising policy. Common experiences andlessons are summarized though case studies of4typical foreign resource-dependentcities’ transformation in Germany, Japan, France, and the United States.Chapter VII: Proposals on improvement of resource-dependent cities’ transformationin China. On the basis of the above quantitative and qualitative analysis, the author,from the perspectives of government and investors, attempts to design amarket-oriented fund raising mechanism, explores a fund raising mechanism to meetthe gap, and propose several policy measures to improve the investment andfund-raising system with full consideration of the characteristics and major problemsin the Fuxin transformation.