Paper Keywords: resource-based enterprises; Sustainable development; restraining factor
Abstract: With the development of economy, we are more and more dependent on various resources, and the resulting environmental and ecological problems need our serious consideration and treatment. If the rational utilization of resources and the protection of ecological environment are not considered in economic development, it will be difficult for the economy to achieve sustained growth. This paper attempts to analyze the factors restricting the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China from the internal and external environment, and on this basis, puts forward basic countermeasures.
First, the meaning of sustainable development of resource-based enterprises
Resource-based enterprises refer to enterprises that monopolize or monopolize resources and take the resource-based products produced as the final leading product form. In the composition of product value, the contribution of natural resources to product value occupies a major position, and we should make full use of the natural conditions existing in the region as far as possible, rely on the consumption of resources, achieve rapid growth through effective management and timely innovation, and form an enterprise with the advantage of resource possession as its core competitiveness. It should be emphasized that the "resources" of resource-based enterprises mentioned in this paper refer to non-renewable natural resources.
Combining the meaning of resource-based enterprises and sustainable development, we believe that the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises refers to the sustainable development of enterprises centered on economic, environmental, resource, social and safety benefits on the basis that production and operation behaviors conform to national laws and regulations on ecological environmental protection. Enterprises need to coordinate the relationship among internal population, resources, environment and development to ensure harmonious, efficient, orderly and long-term development capabilities.
Resources are the foundation of national economic development, and the richness and combination of resources largely determine the industrial structure and economic advantages of a country or city, especially when the level of economic and technological development is not high, mainly labor-intensive industries and resource-intensive industries, the impact of resources on national economic and social development is more prominent. According to the assessment, the recoverable resources in China are 654.38+0.4 billion tons, accounting for 4.5% of the world's final recoverable reserves of 3654.38+0.654.38+0.3 billion tons. At present, more than 95% of energy, more than 80% of industrial raw materials and more than 70% of agricultural water come from mining. It can be seen that resource-based enterprises are of great significance to the establishment of a complete national economic system and modernization development in China, and it is particularly necessary and urgent to realize the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China.
Second, the factors restricting the sustainable development of China's resource-based enterprises
Resource-based enterprises are strongly restricted by natural conditions, with large investment and long construction period; The particularity of life cycle (development generally goes through exploration and demonstration period, construction period, high-speed development period, maturity period and decline period, and is limited by resource reserves-as long as the recoverable resources are exhausted, its life will end, and it is impossible to artificially extend the life cycle of enterprises through science and technology and developing new products like other enterprises); It has the development characteristics of wide coverage, narrow industrial base and strong radiation. Resource-based enterprises are destined to go through a process from prosperity to decline, and the development characteristics of resource-based enterprises, especially state-owned resource-based enterprises, will inevitably encounter many problems. Although resource-based enterprises are constantly adjusting their industries, there are still many problems in general, and the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises is restricted by many factors.
external factor
1. The shortage of resources is increasingly prominent. China is rich in resources, but due to its large population, its per capita resources are lower than the world average. For example, the per capita possession of minerals is only half of the world average, and the per capita possession of water resources is less than a quarter of the world average. In addition, some important resources are seriously inadequate in supporting economic and social development. According to the statistics of relevant departments, according to the current population and economic growth trend, by 20 10, the shortage of minerals will account for more than half; By 2020, most minerals can't meet the demand, and the shortage of raw materials and energy will become the bottleneck of social and economic development in China.
2. Economic growth is still dominated by extensive methods. For a long time, the price of resource products in China has been controlled by the government, which is obviously low, which makes the labor productivity of industries that invest in resource products artificially depressed. This policy has caused the low income of mineral resource-based industries to have a downward restraining force on the development of mineral resource-based enterprises, and made the development of mineral resource-based enterprises reach a relatively stable equilibrium under the low-level institutional distortion, that is, fall into an inefficient state. In this way, resource-based enterprises not only have little room for connotative expansion, but also the whole society can obtain the right to use resources at low prices, which objectively encourages people to abuse and waste mineral resources, enlarges the extensive expansion strategy, and forms a high path dependence of the extensive growth model in China today. Although the extensive development model has stimulated the rapid development of China's economy, it is a linear industrial model at the cost of high consumption and high pollution, which also leads to a great waste of resources and the continuous deterioration of the environment. According to the outline of the tenth five-year plan for national economic and social development, by 20 10, China's GDP will double on the basis of 2000. If we continue to use the traditional development model to promote high economic growth, it will only continue to weaken the sustainability of social and economic development in China.
3. Economic cost precipitation. The meaning of economic precipitation cost refers to those costs that the promised investment cost cannot be completely compensated by transfer price or resale price. (1) The productive assets that resource-based enterprises need to invest, such as material capital and human capital invested in geological exploration, mining and processing, are difficult to recover the investment cost when they quit the original industry because of their strong specificity; (2) The commercial basement market has not yet formed, the market is not perfect, the trading channels are not smooth, the basement project lacks a diversified investment system, and the economic activities carried out need to pay a lot of transaction costs such as search and contract, which are all precipitation costs; (3) Most resource-based enterprises are geographically remote and far from central cities. In order to get rid of the location disadvantage, we need to invest more transportation network and storage infrastructure. When these investments are transferred to other areas for development, these assets are difficult to take away with enterprises. Even if they are sold, it is difficult to recover the investment cost due to the disadvantage of location, which is easy to produce precipitation costs; (4) In the process of fixed cost transformation, a large number of economic precipitation costs are formed, mainly including the resettlement cost of retired labor force and the liquidated damages that must be paid for the termination of various contracts due to the withdrawal of enterprises. In a word, the above-mentioned economic precipitation cost constitutes an obstacle for enterprises to implement strategies such as industrial chain extension, industrial transformation and regional expansion, which further makes enterprises fall into the original business situation and it is difficult to develop continuous industries.
4. Inertia of administrative control leads to serious fragmentation of resource utilization, and no industrial cluster is formed. According to the definition of M Porter of Harvard Business School in the book "National Competitive Advantage", an industrial cluster is "a collection of companies and institutions that are interrelated and geographically concentrated in a particular field". The sustainable development of enterprises comes from their industrial competitiveness, and the development mode of industrial clusters can improve the competitiveness of regional and even national industries and improve product quality. For a single enterprise, it can increase the sales of its products and expand the production scale of its enterprises. For example, the development of high-tech industrial clusters in Silicon Valley in the United States and IT industrial clusters in Dongguan, Guangdong Province has promoted the rapid development of enterprise economy in the whole region. The economic power formed by industrial clusters is a competitive advantage that individual enterprises do not have.
Due to the historical reasons of the development of resource-based enterprises, the fragmentation phenomenon caused by the planned economic system in resource-based areas is very serious and has certain universality. Take mineral resource-based enterprises as an example. Since the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), China has formulated and implemented the policy of "developing large, medium and small enterprises simultaneously" and "rushing water" according to local conditions. At the same time, administrative access control does not allow mineral resource-based enterprises to develop mineral resources across regions, and does not allow the industrial chain to extend across industries. The direct consequences of this way of establishing enterprises based on geographical distribution of resources are as follows: the administrative demarcation limits greatly restrict the natural development of mining enterprises, and enterprises can only mine according to the demarcated resources, with limited scale; It is not uncommon for enterprises to be forced to go bankrupt because of difficulties in cross-regional expansion and lack of sustainable resources in old mining areas. There are many development subjects in a mining area, large mines are small, and many mines are opened, which leads to unreasonable layout and blind mining. In fact, administrative demarcation is a restriction to maximize the scale effect of mining enterprises, which realizes the economic scale index in a certain sense, but greatly sacrifices the scale economy; Moreover, this phenomenon of administrative division not only prevents enterprises from rationally allocating production factors, but also breaks the specialized division of labor among regions, resulting in a large number of low-level redundant constructions and low-level scale comparisons, which objectively intensifies the disorderly competition of mineral resource-based enterprises, hinders the strategic transformation and structural adjustment of mining industrial organizations, and further aggravates the risk that the development of China mining enterprises is locked in the low end of the global industrial chain.
5. Social cost precipitation. The so-called social precipitation cost refers to the commitment of rights under the contractual arrangement, and once the interests that cannot be compensated are terminated, it will also produce precipitation cost. It has become a natural function for resource-based enterprises to undertake more social obligations. China's resource-based cities (especially those without resources) are mostly established by resource-based state-owned enterprises, and the relationship between cities and enterprises has three characteristics: "one city and one enterprise, the integration of government and enterprises, and enterprises running society". Enterprises have to take into account the development of the whole city, which has a heavy burden, thus restricting the development of resource-based enterprises; Moreover, the "owner's absence" of decision-makers in resource-based enterprises, a long interest chain derived by government departments from resource-based enterprises, the "insider" control of enterprises and the imperfect social security system constitute many social precipitation costs in the development of resource-based enterprises, and various interest chains are intertwined, which also limits the production transformation, transformation and the development of continuing industries to a great extent.
6. The relevant laws, regulations and supervision system are not perfect. The legal system of sustainable development in most countries in the world is complete and distinct. However, at present, the laws and policies conducive to promoting sustainable economic development in China are far from being formed, mainly including clean production law and energy conservation law. There are no laws and regulations that specifically stipulate the responsibilities and obligations of enterprises, and there is also a lack of more specific laws and regulations. China's laws and policies on sustainable economic development are seriously absent, the supervision system has not been clearly established, and the external motivation and internal interest mechanism for promoting sustainable economic development have not been generally formed, which is far from the requirements of sustainable economic development.
7. The ecological environment situation is grim. Although the country has taken a series of measures in environmental governance and made great achievements, the environmental problems are still very serious. The total discharge of major pollutants in China is still at a high level, in which the discharge of sulfur dioxide and COD far exceeds the environmental carrying capacity; The pollutants emitted by the energy industry are more than 10 times that of developed countries. According to the calculation of the World Bank, in the mid-1990s, the annual losses caused by air and river pollution in China accounted for more than 8% of GDP. If this continues, the environmental cost will account for about 10.6% of GDP by 2020. By then, China will pay a huge price for this economic growth. In addition, the signing and implementation of "Kyoto Protocol" will force resource-based enterprises to pay attention to environmental protection and green production from a stricter perspective. The environmental awareness and green production of enterprises will directly affect the international market sales of products, and even affect the survival and sustainable development of enterprises.
internal factor
1. Weak concept. Easterly, 2002) in his book Seeking in the Mist of Growth, thinks that countries with slow economic growth are more likely to make ends meet, are more short-sighted and do not pay attention to sustainable development. Poor countries are more likely to betray the future, and they are willing to use the welfare of future generations as collateral to finance the life of this generation (mainly government interest groups), thus entering a vicious circle. Selling assets has become the most direct form of "selling the future". Overexploitation and cheap sale of oil are one of the forms of asset sale, and the oil reserves left to the next generation of residents are greatly reduced. The government's policy is more inclined to current consumption than future consumption. These countries will exploit underground oil resources faster, and they can get more current income, but this is at the expense of future income.
Because the concept of sustainable development has not been popularized, the propaganda is not enough, enterprises do not have a deep understanding of the concept, necessity and urgency of economic sustainable development, and their awareness of resource conservation and environmental protection is poor. In the marketing concept of many resource-based enterprises in China, the marketing goal still stays in the extensive marketing stage of stimulating consumption and pursuing the increase of consumption quantity; Some enterprises think that they can't develop and are not interested in considering environmental governance. This leads to the lack of active participation in resource conservation, comprehensive utilization and efficient utilization. At present, some local governments in some provinces and cities in China still pursue short-term achievements, while resource-based enterprises only pursue short-term profit maximization. This short-sighted development model has left serious drawbacks. Without the strategy of sustainable development, the development mode of "fishing with exhausted resources" devours the future development opportunities of regional economy.
2. Lack of funds for sustainable development. The sustainable development of resource-based enterprises is limited by funds, and their development needs certain financial support. On the one hand, due to the single financing channel of resource-based enterprises in China, they rely too much on bank loans and have a heavy interest burden. In addition, the problem of mutual arrears among enterprises is serious, the proportion of bad debts is too large, and the solvency is reduced, which reduces the economic benefits of enterprises; On the other hand, to implement the sustainable development strategy, it is necessary to popularize new products and transform existing production technologies and processes, which requires a lot of manpower, financial resources and material resources. However, due to insufficient funds, supporting measures and equipment are difficult to reach the designated position. Therefore, the problem of funds has a great influence on the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China. Taking resource regeneration as an example, the practice of international enterprises shows that the development potential of resource regeneration, recycling and harmless treatment is great, but the actual situation in China is that the regeneration cost of turning waste products and wastes into useful resources is far higher than the price of buying new resources; In addition, because China's current environmental capacity has not been regarded as a limited resource subject to strict supervision, the waste and sewage charges paid by enterprises and mass consumers are not only far lower than the compensation fee for pollution damage, but also significantly lower than the pollution control fee, so the cost of recycling production is difficult to recover. Therefore, under the current market economy conditions, it is difficult for China's resource-based enterprises to spontaneously produce in the circular economy.
3. Low technical level. The survival and development of resource-based enterprises mainly depend on their core competitiveness, which is embodied in technological innovation. At present, due to the lack of effective and perfect technology development and innovation mechanism, the level of independent innovation is not high, the level of comprehensive utilization of resources is low, and the relationship between R&D and the transformation of technological achievements is not close. For example, due to the limited technical level, the comprehensive utilization rate of resources in China is low, and about 3 million tons of scrap steel and 6 million tons of waste paper are unused every year; The comprehensive utilization rates of steel slag, fly ash, coal gangue and petrochemical waste residue are 83.7%, 47.9%, 38% and 45% respectively, and the utilization rate of tailings is insufficient 10%. * * * The utilization rate of associated ore is less than 20%, and the total recovery rate is only 30%, which is 20 ~ 30 percentage points lower than the advanced foreign level. This is undoubtedly worse for a big country that is already short of resources, which greatly restricts the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China.
4. Lack of high-quality talents. The overall quality, ability, structure and stability of employees are directly related to the survival and sustainable development of enterprises. Without high-quality talents, it will be difficult for resource-based enterprises to cope with the complex and changeable environment in the knowledge economy, and it will be difficult to build their own core competitiveness to gain competitive advantage. At present, from the perspective of human resource structure, the shortage of core talents has seriously restricted the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China.
5. The enterprise system is not perfect. There are many loopholes in the management organization and management of resource-based enterprises in China. As mentioned above, in terms of organizational form, some departments overlap and set up too much, and some necessary sustainable development research management departments, such as environmental management and environmental evaluation, are vacant, which makes the important work of sustainable research basically mixed with other departments or not considered at all. In addition, there are many shortcomings in the management system, mainly because enterprises lack the necessary whole-process management system, and most enterprises are still in the terminal control management stage of "pollution first and then treatment", and the result is often the externalization of environmental costs.
Third, to promote the sustainable development of China's resource-based enterprises countermeasures
(A) the government level
It is necessary for relevant government agencies to make improvements in the following aspects: (1) Encourage resource-based enterprises with good reputation and standardized production to carry out strategic restructuring in the form of joint venture, cooperation and merger. Under the background of global industrial division of labor system, guide enterprises to embed in the global resource industry chain, enhance their core competitiveness and move towards a high-end development path; (2) Provide preferential policy support. According to the development of different industries, different preferential policies can be provided, such as higher export tax rebate rate, necessary technical support and preferential green tax, preferential government loans and other measures; (3) Increase investment in environmental protection. Lack of funds is not only an important factor restricting the sustainable development of resource-based enterprises in China, but also a major factor affecting China's macro-control. (4) Intensify publicity, popularize environmental education, and raise the environmental awareness of the whole people; (5) Improve the legal system, strengthen law enforcement and learn from foreign advanced experience. We must implement strict environmental protection policies, encourage the development of efficient, energy-saving and clean new products, and pay attention to improving China's environmental protection legislation with the emergence of new pollutants; (6) Actively participate in the construction of international industrial systems, industrial standards and norms, and create a fair, just and reasonable international competitive environment for China resource-based enterprises to be embedded in the global industrial chain and realize continuous upgrading.
Enterprise level
From the enterprise itself, it should: (1) extend the industrial chain and introduce alternative industries. Because resources will eventually be exhausted, we should extend the industrial chain, increase added value and gradually introduce alternative industries at an appropriate time while rationally developing and utilizing resources. Adhere to the principle of sustainable development, transform traditional industries, improve the content of science and technology, and create a good capital, human resources and institutional environment for technological innovation; (2) We should change from the traditional pursuit of economic growth to the pursuit of economic development. The sustainable development of resource-based enterprises emphasizes development rather than growth. Whether it is the production scale of an enterprise or the market scale of an enterprise, there are limits to growth. Growth is quantitative change and development is qualitative change. An enterprise may not get bigger, but it will get better. The sustainable development of enterprises pursues the improvement of enterprise competitiveness and continuous innovation, not just the survival in the general sense; (3) The utilization of resources and energy should change from consumption to conservation; (4) Pollution control should be changed from terminal control to whole process control; (5) Change from resource-oriented strategy to market-oriented strategy; (6) Earnestly carry out the feasibility study of foreign resource exploration and development projects, actively implement the strategies of "going out" and "bringing in", make full use of "two resources and two markets", adjust the import and export structure of products according to the principle of comparative interests, encourage the export of deep-processed high value-added products and the import of primary products, and strive to establish a sustainable resource supply system.
References:
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[2] Hou Guanghui. The rapid expansion of resource-based enterprises and the dilemma of sustainable development [J]. Economic Horizon, 2007, (7).