Location Decisions Of Small And Medium-sized Industrial Enterprises,and Factors Constraining Their Development In Changshu,jiangsu Province

Under the new normal,industrial enterprises in China has been facing with difficulties such as overcapacity,intensified competition,weak export,rising labor costs,rising land and raw material costs,and increasing environmental protection standards.Industry is an important component of regional economy,and location decisions of industrial enterprises are an important perspective to understand the regional economic development.Previous researches on the location decisions of industrial enterprises in China focused on large-sized enterprises at geographically large areas and in large cities,whereas researches on location decisions of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises at the county level are very limited.Previous researches involved mainly cost and market factors and agglomeration economy,which are emphasized by the traditional location theory,whereas little attention is paid to location factors implied by institutional turn,relational turn and cultural turn in economic geography.Further,location decisions of new one-plant enterprises,relocation and expansion of facilities of multi-plant enterprises should be treated separately.Moreover,under the new normal,there are few studies addressing factors restricting the development of industrial enterprises from the enterprise perspective.Changshu City is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou City.For many years,Changshu ranked economically as the top three counties in the "National Top 100 counties".However,in recent years,its economy developed at a slower speed,and even encountered recession.Its industry faced with enormous challenges.Based on historical development trajectories of industries in Changshu and questionnaires and interviews of 112 small and medium-sized industrial enterprises,this paper analyzed location decision factors and factors constraining development of these enterprises.It is found:(1)Business climate,cost and market factors are the most important factors influencing location decisions of new plant in Changshu.Personal considerations and accidental factors also have great influence.In contrast,social relations play a weak role.There are differences in location decisions of different industries.(2)Location decisions of relocation and expansion of facilities of multi-plant enterprises are similar.Main factors include costs,proximity to markets and environmental standards.(3)The interviewed enterprises cited severe market competition and rising production costs as main factors restricting their future development.They believe their future development relies on their own technological progress and domestic and international market demand.