An Empirical Research On The Regional Economic Development In Sichuan Province

For over30years of reform and opening-up, China’s economy progresses by leapsand bounds, but a certain contradiction and bottleneck subsequent, and the existence ofthe economic development gap between eastern Midwest is the inevitable result ofeconomic development. To transfer the residual development resources from the eastcoast to the west, the western development center was established in January2000andoperated in March2000. In the13years after the western development centerestablished, especially in recent years, the western development strategy put intopractice. In2010, the western center has carried out several important projects, andmade breakthrough progress. The west development regions include six provinces, fiveautonomous regions and one municipality directly under the central government, amongwhich, Sichuan’s economic growth plays an important role in the western economic.However, along with the rapid development of economy of Sichuan, its regionaleconomic development gap is widening. The development center of Sichuan is alwaysin the provincial capital and the surrounding cities. The human resources, materialresources and financial resources and other resources are concentrated in the central city,widening the regional development disparity, and the residents’ income gap is alsogradually expanding. Sichuan’s development strategy of "the11th Five-yearDevelopment Program" makes plan for the five regional economic zones: Chengdueconomic zone (in central of Sichuan), southern economic zone (in the southeast ofSichuan), Panxi economic zone (in the southwest of Sichuan), northeast economic zoneand northwest ecological economic zone. Among them, the zone of Chengdu includingcities of Chengdu, Deyang, Mianyang, Ziyang and Meishan, the economic developmentof Chengdu performances far better than the other four cities’ development. Because ofZiyang and Meishan to join in Chengdu economic zone, to some extent it narrows hugegap between Chengdu economic zone and the four economic zones, but as a result ofChengdu’ economic owning absolute advantages on various aspects, therefore, the gapwill still exist for a long time. Above all, we must guard against and reduce seriousnegative effect brought by the regional economic development imbalances.This article selects the important city of western regions—Sichuan, basing on thereference related to research of economic development gap between regions, with GDPper capita as an index, selecting the two main factors of foreign direct investment and industrial structure to study the regional economic development gap in Sichuan. First ofall, make a static description of Sichuan’ overall and regional economic developmentwith the indicators of GDP, per capita GDP, industrial structure, FDI distribution.Second, make thiel index decomposition on GDP per capita to analyze Sichuan’ overalleconomic development gap, regional disparity and the gap between groups and theircontribution to total difference. Again, on the basis of above analysis, establish timeseries and model of GDP per capita as the explained variable during1998to2011, withdomestic investment, FDI, industrial structure and the average worker pay as explainedvariables, in order to further explore the gap of the existence of regional economicdevelopment in Sichuan, the cause of economic development gap and the influence ofvarious factors. Finally, on the basis of qualitative and quantitative analysis, put forwardcountermeasures and suggestions for the development of regional economy andnarrowing the gap between regional economic zones.